regex : match any character ?

[Edward Chen]

I want to replace "${(col=='sadfdsafds')?'':'selected'}" with a new string. I wrote a regex, like

Pattern.compile("\\$\\{ * \\}");

I use the star to match any character inside "{ }", it doesn't work, which expression I should use ?

Thanks.

[Henry Wong]

I use the star to match any character inside "{ }", it doesn't work, which expression I should use ?

That's not how it works. Regular expressions, and the pattern matching used by OSes, don't work the same. In a regular expression, a "." matches everything. A "*" means zero or more of the previous character. Also, a regular express will try to match as much as possible -- so if you want to match to the next close curly brace, instead of to the last close curly brace, you need to use the "?" modifier to tell the regex to be reluctant.

Basically, you should use ".*?" between the braces, to match the minimum amount of anything, between the braces.

Henry

[Edward Chen]

Thank you very much.

[Piet Verdriet]

Originally posted by Henry Wong:


That's not how it works. Regular expressions, and the pattern matching used by OSes, don't work the same. In a regular expression, a "." matches everything. ...

Except new line characters.