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Asked: 2026-05-31T10:56:15+00:00

I want to write a method for a Java class. The method accepts as

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I want to write a method for a Java class. The method accepts as input a string of XML data as given below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<library>

    <book>
        <name> <> Programming in ANSI C <> </name>
        <author> <>  Balaguruswamy <> </author>
        <comment> <> This comment may contain xml entities such as &, < and >. <> </comment>
    </book>

    <book>
        <name> <> A Mathematical Theory of Communication <> </name>
        <author> <> Claude E. Shannon <> </author>
        <comment> <> This comment also may contain xml entities. <> </comment>
    </book>

    <!-- This library contains more than ten thousand books. -->
</library>

The XML string contains a lot of substring starting and ending with <>. The substring may contain XML entities such as >, <, &, ‘ and “. The method need to replace them with &gt;, &lt;, &amp;. &apos; and &quot; respectively.

Is there any regular-expression method in Java to accomplish this task?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Is this data being passed to you, or can you control it? If so, then I would suggest using a CDATA block. If you are really unsure about the data being entered into the xml blocks, then just wrap everything in a CDATA before it is saved to the DB

    If you do not have control over this, then as far as I know, this will take a fair amount of coding due to the number of edge cases you possibly will have to deal with. Not something that a simple regex will be able to deal with (if a valid block is starting, if one is ending, if one has already ended, etc)

    Here is a very basic regex for the <> case, but the rest I really believe just get extremely complicated

    \<\>* //For <> changes
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