Question

I’m making a code which takes a file and checks if it’s a valid Java code, must be done using regexes.

I run over every line and checks if it end with ; or { or }.
however, I can’t seem to manage to limit it to only 1 occurence of it.
i.e
both

int i=0;

and

int i=0 ;;;;;;;

would pass..
The regex I’m using right now is

.+;{1}\\s*$

tried many other options, non seems to work.
any help would be great!
Thanks

Answer 1

Your problem is that the . will also match a semicolon, so your expression will match all but the last semicolon as part of the .+.

To avoid this, you could match any character except a semicolon by using [^;]. i.e.

[^;]+;\\s*$

However, you should be aware that int i=0 ;;;;;;;;; is perfectly valid Java code.