problems with replaceAll and slash character

[jean-gobert de coster]

Hi,
I have a string

String myString="/folder 2";

and I'm trying to replace the / with a \

myString= myString.replaceAll("/","\\\\");

but in the end, nothing is replaced and myString is still "/folder 2"

I really don't understand why this isn't working, anyone has a clue?

[Campbell Ritchie]

package trivia;

import static java.lang.System.err;
import static java.lang.System.out;

public class SlashReplacement
{
    private String text;
    private String regex;
    private String replacement;
    
    public SlashReplacement(String text, String regex, String replacement)
    {
        this.text = text;
        this.regex = regex;
        this.replacement = replacement;
/*
 *  You can try different combinations of \\ by commenting and un-commenting the
 *  following lines
 */        
//      this.replacement = "\\"
//      this.replacement = "\\\\";
//      this.replacement = "\\\\\\\\"
    }//end constructor
    
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        if (args.length != 3)
        {
            err.println("Usage java trivia.SlashReplacement /myLocation/myFile / \\\\");
        }//end if
        else
        {
            new SlashReplacement(args[0], args[1], args[2]).printResults();
        }//end else
    }//end main
    
    private void printResults()
    {
        out.println(text.replaceAll(regex, replacement));
    }//end print results
}//end class

[Campbell@localhost java]$ javac -d . SlashReplacement.java
[Campbell@localhost java]$ java trivia.SlashReplacement /myLocation/myFile / \\\\
\myLocation\myFile

[jean-gobert de coster]

ok, so it seems to be working fine with you :-( which is good news because that's how it's supposed to work...

I was doing some more treatments to the string before, so that may be the problem.

My original code was this:

  		String path="";
		try {
			path = ISO9075.decode(accessControlService.getACLs(predicate, null)[0].getReference().getPath());
			logger.debug(path);
			path = path.replaceAll("/.*?:", "/").replaceFirst("/company_home", "").replaceAll("/", "\\\\");
			logger.debug(path);

		} catch (AccessControlFault e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (RemoteException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
  

I changed it to

  		String path="";
		try {
			path = ISO9075.decode(accessControlService.getACLs(predicate, null)[0].getReference().getPath());
			logger.debug(path);
			path = path.replaceAll("/.*?:", "\\\\").replaceFirst("\\\\company_home", "");
			logger.debug(path);
		} catch (AccessControlFault e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		} catch (RemoteException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
  

and now it works... go figure

[Campbell Ritchie]

That is different from what you posted earlier. Do you really want the .*? after / ?
You realise the .* can match zero occurrences of anything (except line end), so that might cause problems?

Try breaking those chained calls into individual statements and insert System.out.println calls between successive lines, so you can see what is happening.

[jean-gobert de coster]

from the getPath method I'm calling before decodint, I get a String that looks like this

/app:company_home/cm:folder_x0020_1/cm:_x0030_054321.pdf

what i need is to turn this into

\folder 1\0054321.pdf

so yes I need to match /.*?:

My example was simplified but I based myself of what I know from playing around with the log outputs. If I simply remove the .replaceAll("/","\\\\") the log gives this as output:

/app:company_home/cm:folder 1/cm:0054321.pdf
/folder 1/0054321.pdf

adding the .replaceAll("/","\\\\") and the log gives this output

/app:company_home/cm:folder 1/cm:0054321.pdf
/folder 1/0054321.pdf

but nevermind this, since the second code example makes those things work just right, and is actually better in all aspects.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Maybe a regular expression to match those hex numbers? I am not used to seeing x0020, but usually see %20 in URLs.

But if it is working . . . leave well alone

[jean-gobert de coster]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Maybe a regular expression to match those hex numbers? I am not used to seeing x0020, but usually see %20 in URLs.

But if it is working . . . leave well alone

the _x0020_ are XPath encoding, but the ISO9075.decode() method makes sure they are translated

Yeah I'll leave it thanks for the help anyways ;-)

[Campbell Ritchie]

jean-gobert de coster wrote:. . .) thanks for the help anyways ;-)