String replace

[Swastik Dey]

I have the following code snippet to replace a string, but it's not working.

String a="<p><a href='#' onClick=\"return showLink('HomeOwner')\">**HomeOwner**</a></p>";
a=a.replaceAll("<a href='#' onClick=\"return showLink('HomeOwner')\">\\*\\*HomeOwner\\*\\*</a>","B");
System.out.println(a);

[James Sabre]

The first parameter to replaceAll() is a regular expression and in regular expressions the characters '(' ,')' and '*' are meta characters that have a special meaning. I suspect you just need to use the replace() method which takes the first argument literally.

[Raymond Tong]

Swastik Dey wrote:I have the following code snippet to replace a string, but it's not working.

String a="<p><a href='#' onClick=\"return showLink('HomeOwner')\">**HomeOwner**</a></p>";
a=a.replaceAll("<a href='#' onClick=\"return showLink('HomeOwner')\">\\*\\*HomeOwner\\*\\*</a>","B");
System.out.println(a);

As mentioned above, String.replaceAll treats the first argument string as regular expression.
If you want to replace ALL without regular expression, try with \Q..\E sequence.
http://www.regular-expressions.info/characters.html#qe

[James Sabre]

Raymond Tong wrote:
If you want to replace ALL without regular expression, try with \Q..\E sequence.

That is absolutely true and I considered posting this information but the OP seems not to understand even the minimum about regular expressions since he obviously did not recognise the most fundamental meta characters. The conclusion is that the OP just wants to replace literally and then what is the point of going to the trouble of parsing a regular expression when the replace() method will achieve the same result?

[Rob Spoor]

I'd use Pattern.quote instead of manually adding \Q and \E, but I'd prefer using replace over replaceAll unless you need to use a regex.