Question

I have recently started using java 7 and I want to use <> diamond operator in my existing code. Can anyone tell how to find and replace all the instances of ArrayList to ArrayList<>.

For e.g.:

List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<Integer>();

would become

List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();

I can follow same patter for Set and Map,too.

Answer 1

Looking for ([^\t (](List|Map|Set))<[^>]+> (Case sensitive + Regular expression) and replacing by $1<> (Regular expression) worked for me.

Regex:

([^\t (](List|Map|Set)): any char but a space, a tab or an opening parenthese, followed by List, Map or Set (to match any kind of collections)

• ArrayList will match (i.e. yList)
• LinkedList too (i.e. dList)
• but List won’t (there’s no char before List)

<[^>]+>: starts with <, then any char but > 1 time or more, then >

$1<>: chars that were between the surrounding parentheses followed by <>

How to:

1) Ctrl + H

2)

3)