Question

I have String in the following format

blah blah [user:1] ho ho [user:2] he he he

I want it to be replaced by

blah blah <a href='1'>someFunctionCall(1)</a> ho ho <a href='2'>someFunctionCall(2)</a> he he he

so two things replacement of [user:id] and a methodCall

note: I want to do it in groovy, what would be the efficient way of doing it

Answer 1

Groovy, baby:

def someFunctionCall = { "someFunctionCall(${it})" }
assert "blah blah [user:1] ho ho [user:2] he he he"
    .replaceAll(/\[user:(\d+)]/){ all, id ->
    "<a href=\"${id}\">${someFunctionCall(id)}</a>"
    } == "blah blah <a href=\"1\">someFunctionCall(1)</a> ho ho <a href=\"2\">someFunctionCall(2)</a> he he he"