Question

Is there any way that you can remove IPs from a string?

The input file we get sometimes has IPs attached to the user name, e.g.

Jan vd Merwe
Piet Breedt (172.166.23.41)
Jan vd Merwe (164.23.23.51)
Sarel Fourie (23.12.167.244)
Piet Breedt

So if there is an IP, I want to remove it. I have been looking at alot of functions but cant seem to get the indexing and parameters right.

Answer 1

Use String.replace():

String myString = "Piet Breedt (172.166.23.41)";
// replace everything in between the parens (including the parens) by the empty String
myString = myString.replace("\(.*\)", "");

Of course, the regex could be specialised to only match ips, something like

\(\\d{1,3}\.\\d{1,3}\.\\d{1,3}.\\d{1,3}\)

EDIT

Here’s how you would replace the lines in the files (pseudocode):

1. Open the original file. Open a temporary file.
2. Read line by line. This will give you a String for every line.
3. Remove the contents within the String. Write the new String to the temporary file.
4. When done, replace the original file by the temporary file.