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javaregexstringreplaceall

Replace all "(" and ")" in a string in Java

How to replace all "(" and ")" in a string with a fullstop, in Java? I tried in the following way:

String url = "https://bitbucket.org/neeraj_r/url-shortner)";
url.replaceAll(")", ".");
url.replaceAll(")", ".");

But it does not work. The error is:

Exception in thread "main" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Unmatched closing
')'
 )
at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Unknown Source)
at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.String.replaceAll(Unknown Source)
at com.azzist.cvConversion.server.URLChecker.main(URLChecker.java:32)

I think this problem will be there in all regex too. Adding \ before ) did not work.

Solution

  • You can use replaceAll in one go:

    url.replaceAll("[()]", ".")

    Explanation:

    • [()] matches both ( and ), the brackets don't need to be escaped inside the [] group.

    EDIT (as pointed out by @Keppil):

    Note also, the String url is not changed by the replace, it merely returns a new String with the replacements, so you'd have to do:

    url = url.replaceAll("[()]", ".");