Can someone help me with a regular expression?

hi, im trying to convert a string like this

hello mylist liststart:1.one 2.this is point two 3.and here we have point three 4.whatever12345 5.:-) end:listend rest of the line

into some valid html code (html list). when im finished it should look like this:

<ol start="1" type="1">
<li>one</li>
<li>this is point two</li>
<li>and here we have point three</li>
<li>whatever12345</li>
<li>:-)</li>
</ol>

here is what i have so far:

but this code doenst work correctly. anyone any idea?

thanks in advance :-)

Originally posted by Katja Ernst:
hi, im trying to convert a string like this

hello mylist liststart:1.one 2.this is point two 3.and here we have point three 4.whatever12345 5.:-) end:listend rest of the line

into some valid html code (html list). when im finished it should look like this:

<ol start="1" type="1">
<li>one</li>
<li>this is point two</li>
<li>and here we have point three</li>
<li>whatever12345</li>
<li>:-)</li>
</ol>

here is what i have so far:

String s = "hello mylist liststart:1.one 2.this is point two 3.and here we have point three 4.whatever12345 5.:-) end:listend rest of the line"; s=s.replaceAll("\\d\\.([\\S]+)", "<li>$1</li>"); s=s.replaceAll("liststart:", "<ol start=1 type=1>"); s=s.replaceAll(":listend", "</ol>"); System.out.println(s);

but this code doenst work correctly. anyone any idea?

thanks in advance :-)

Hi Katja,

I wouldn't do this with a regular expression. I think it's better handled by a parser class that would take a String input and turn it into the appropriate tokens. I'd have a toXML() method that would return the tokens as the XML stream that you want: liststart, liststart, and a delimited string in-between. Choose the delimiter carefully - "dot" might not be the best choice if any of the data can sensibly contain a period.

Try this:

hi, thanks to both of you.

@alan: your version will not put the last point (5. ...) into <li></li>. what must i do to correct this?

thanks :-)

It works for me, but the regex does assume there's exactly one space character following each list entry. Maybe you need something more flexible:

hi, thanks. if i use a line like this one here:

String s = "hello list liststart:1.:-) 2.yyy two 3.dsdsds 4.ttt 5.five:listend and end of the string.";

the output is:

hello list <ol start=1 type=1><li>:-)</li>
<li>yyy two</li>
<li>dsdsds</li>
<li>ttt</li>
5.five</ol> and end of the string.

but should be:

hello list <ol start=1 type=1><li>:-)</li>
<li>yyy two</li>
<li>dsdsds</li>
<li>ttt</li>
<li>five</li></ol> and end of the string.

any ideas?

The problem is that you changed the ending delimiter without telling me (but I agree that that "end" token didn't need to be there). Try this:

hi, thanks :-D....works as it should! the end delimiter was no delimiter, it was just a word :-)...

thanks again