Question

Using following regexp I can get if a string starts with a or b.

        Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^(a|b)");
        Matcher m = p.matcher("0I am a string");
        boolean b = m.find();
        System.out.println("....output..."+b);

But I need to check if the string starts with some special characters like * or ^ etc. In that case the following regexp gives Pattern error.

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^(*|^)");
        Matcher m = p.matcher("0I am a string");
        boolean b = m.find();

        System.out.println("....output..."+b);

How to check if a number starts with * or ^ using regular expression

Answer 1

Thanks to mathematical.coffee for nice response

Finally I found a solution by using ^[*^] as regexp to test whether a string contains * or ^

Source Code

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("^[*^]");
        Matcher m = p.matcher("I am a string");
        boolean b = m.find();

        System.out.println("....output..."+b);