Pattern Matching

[Shan Pyong]

Hi,

I have a string like this:
String s="Cat and or dog and and cow or or or and sheep";

Expected string:
String result="Cat and dog and cow or sheep";

I would like to replace patterns like "and and and..." by a single "and" (same for "or"). Similarly, if there is a pattern like "and or.." or "or and or.." in the string, I want that to be replaced with the first word in the pattern. That is, by "and" , "or" respectively.

String s="Cat and or dog";
Output: Cat and dog
String s="cat or and and dog";
Output: cat or dog

Please let me know how to do handle this. Many thanks for your help.

[Garrett Rowe]

This works, but I'm not sure if there's an easier way.

public class RegexTest
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      String[] tests = {
                         "Cat and or dog and and cow or or or and sheep",
                         "Cat and or dog",
                         "cat or and and dog"
                       };
 
      String regex = "\\b((and|or)\\s)((and|or)\\s)*";
 
      for (int i = 0; i < tests.length; i++)
      {
         String replacement = tests[i].replaceAll(regex, "$1");
         System.out.println(replacement);
      }
   }
}