Replace exact words using regular expressions

[Pandu Rangam]

Hi all,
I have some text like
My Apartment, has Apartments where Apts is Apartment Aprartments @Apts. sdfasdfaApt Apt/No Aptasdf asdf Apts.. Apartments

from this i want replace all exact occurrences of
Apartment, Apartments, Apt, Apts,Apts., Apt/No with Some text, ex. "TEST".
After replacing text should look like this

My TEST, has TEST where TEST is TEST TEST @Apts. sdfasdfaApt TEST Aptasdf asdf TEST.
For this I need a regular expression.

Thanks in advance

[Rob Spoor]

Originally posted by Pandu Rangam:
Hi all,
I have some text like
My Apartment, has Apartments where Apts is Apartment Aprartments @Apts. sdfasdfaApt Apt/No Aptasdf asdf Apts.. Apartments

from this i want replace all exact occurrences of
Apartment, Apartments, Apt, Apts,Apts., Apt/No with Some text, ex. "TEST".
After replacing text should look like this

My TEST, has TEST where TEST is TEST TEST @Apts. sdfasdfaApt TEST Aptasdf asdf TEST.
For this I need a regular expression.

Thanks in advance

The regular expression is quite easy: just combine all words with |:
(Apartment)|(Apartments)|(Apt)|(Apts)|(Apts\\.)|(Apt/No)

Please notice the \\. In regular expressions . means any character, so you have to escape it with \. But because that's the Java escape character as well you have to escape that as well.

[Pandu Rangam]

Hi Rob Prime,

The regular expression is quite easy: just combine all words with |:
(Apartment)|(Apartments)|(Apt)|(Apts)|(Apts\\.)|(Apt/No)

I did in the same way but this will replace all occurance, I mean it will replace @Apts. and sdfasdfaApt. But I don't those words to change. I wrote code like this

 
 
public static void main(String[] args) {
String REGEX = "(Apartments)|(Apartment)|(Apts\\.)|(Apts)|(Apt)|(Apt/No)";
String INPUT = "My Apartment, has Apartments where Apts is Apartment Aprartments @Apts. sdfasdfaApt Apt/No Aptasdf asdf Apts.. Apartments";
String REPLACE = "TEST";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(REGEX);
Matcher m = p.matcher(INPUT); // get a matcher object
INPUT = m.replaceAll(REPLACE);
System.out.println(INPUT);
}
   

out put is
My TEST, has TEST where TEST is TEST Aprartments @TEST sdfasdfaTEST TEST/No TESTasdf asdf TEST. TEST

Thanks in advance

[Ulf Dittmer]

In that case you need to match a word boundary before and after the term. Have a look at "\b" for that.

[Pandu Rangam]

Hi Ulf Dittmer,
Thanks for your suggestion. I changed the code accordingly

  
public static void main(String[] args) {
String REGEX = "(\\bApartments\\b)|(\\bApartment\\b)|(\\bApts\\.\\b)|(\\bApts\\b)|(\\bApt\\b)|(\\bApt/No\\b)";
//String REGEX = "\\b(Apartments)\\b";
String INPUT = "My Apartment, has Apartments where Apts is Apartment Apartments @Apts. sdfasdfaApt Apt/No Aptasdf asdf Apts.. Apartments";
String REPLACE = "TEST";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(REGEX);
Matcher m = p.matcher(INPUT); // get a matcher object
INPUT = m.replaceAll(REPLACE);
System.out.println(INPUT);
}
  

output is My TEST, has TEST where TEST is TEST TEST @TEST. sdfasdfaApt TEST/No Aptasdf asdf TEST.. TEST

it is failing for @Apts. and Apt/No.