Question

I am not good at regex and I am trying to use java.lang.String replaceAll() method with code segments as follows

A is:

public class method3 {

    public static int addTwoNumbers(int one, int two){
        return one+two;
    }

    public static void main (String[] args){
        int total = addTwoNumbers(1, 3);
        System.out.println(total);
    }
}

to replace with B

null
public class method3 {
    /* some writting */
    public static int addTwoNumbers(int one, int two){
        return one+two;
    }
    /*more text*/
    public static void main (String[] args){
        int total = addTwoNumbers(1, 3);
        System.out.println(total);
    }//end of 
}

And this is giving me the following error

java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition

Im guessing this has something to do with the /**/ characters?

How do you sort this and is there any other characters i need to look out for?

EDIT: This is the error message

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition near index 25
null
public class method2 {

    public static int addTwoNumbers(int one, int two){
        return one+two;
    }

    public static void main (String[] args){
        int total = addTwoNumbers(1, 3);
        System.out.println(total);
    }
}


                         ^
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Pattern.java:1924)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.closure(Pattern.java:3104)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Pattern.java:2101)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Pattern.java:1964)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Pattern.java:1665)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Pattern.java:1337)
    ....

call to replaceAll()

        String a = readFile(directoryToAddFile,startOfCode, endOfCode);
        String b = textarea.getText().toString();
        String content = IOUtils.toString(new FileInputStream(directoryToAddFile));
        content = content.replaceAll(a, b);
        IOUtils.write(content, new FileOutputStream(directoryToAddFile));

Answer 1

Currently, your code attempts to analyze the “to replace” string as a regex.

To replace a string literally rather than as a regex, you can use Pattern#quote(String).

content = content.replaceAll(Pattern.quote(a), b);

Also, as a side note, you might find String#replace(CharSequence, CharSequence) more appropriate than replaceAll in this situation.