I have this java string:
String bla = "<my:string>invalid_content</my:string>";
How can I replace the "invalid_content" piece?
I know I should use something like this:
bla.replaceAll(regex,"new_content");
in order to have:
"<my:string>new_content</my:string>";
but I can't discover how to create the correct regex
help please :)
You could do something like
String ResultString = subjectString.replaceAll("(<my:string>)(.*)(</my:string>)", "$1whatever$3");
Mark's answer will work, but can be improved with two simple changes:
Giving:
String ResultString = SubjectString.replaceAll
( "(<my:string>).*?(</my:string>)" , "$1whatever$2" );
But that's still not how I'd write it - the replacement can be simplified using lookbehind and lookahead, and you can avoid repeating the tag name, like this:
String ResultString = SubjectString.replaceAll
( "(?<=<(my:string)>).*?(?=</\1>)" , "whatever" );
Of course, this latter one may not be as friendly to those who don't yet know regex - it is however more maintainable/flexible, so worth using if you might need to match more than just my:string tags.
See Java regex tutorial and check out character classes and capturing groups.
Is invalid_content a fix value? If so you could simply replace that with your new content using:
bla = bla.replaceAll("invalid_content","new_content");
