Question

I need to remove commas within a String only when enclosed by quotes.

example:

String a = '123, \'Anders, Jr.\', John, [e-mail],A' 

after replacement should be

String a = '123, Anders Jr., John, [e-mail],A' 

Can you please give me sample java code to do this?

Thanks much,

Lina

Answer 1

Probably grossly inefficiënt but it seems to work.

import java.util.regex.*;  StringBuffer ResultString = new StringBuffer();  try {     Pattern regex = Pattern.compile('(.*)\'(.*),(.*)\'(.*)', Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.UNICODE_CASE);     Matcher regexMatcher = regex.matcher(a);     while (regexMatcher.find()) {         try {             // You can vary the replacement text for each match on-the-fly             regexMatcher.appendReplacement(ResultString, '$1$2$3$4');         } catch (IllegalStateException ex) {             // appendReplacement() called without a prior successful call to find()         } catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) {             // Syntax error in the replacement text (unescaped $ signs?)         } catch (IndexOutOfBoundsException ex) {             // Non-existent backreference used the replacement text         }      }     regexMatcher.appendTail(ResultString); } catch (PatternSyntaxException ex) {     // Syntax error in the regular expression }