How to Java Regex to match everything but specified pattern

Question

I am trying to match everything but garbage values in the entire string.The pattern I am trying to use is:

    ^.*(?!\w|\s|-|\.|[@:,]).*$

I have been testing the pattern on regexPlanet and this seems to be matching the entire string.The input string I was using was:

    Vamsi///#k03@g!!!l.com 123**5

How can I get it to only match everything but the pattern,I would like to replace any string that matches with an empty space or a special charecter of my choice.

Your 'pattern' is weird as well. Also, you need to double escape your patterns in Java. — Jerry
– Jerry, Commented Sep 18, 2013 at 5:31

Bernhard Barker · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-18 05:41:06Z

8

The pattern, as written, is supposed to match the whole string.

^ - start of string.
.* - zero or more of any character.
(?!\w|\s|-|\.|[@:,]) - negative look-ahead for some characters.
.* - zero or more of any character.
$ - end of string.

If you only want to match characters which aren't one of the supplied characters, try simply:

[^-\w\s.@:,]

[^...] is a negated character class, it will match any characters not supplied in the brackets. See this for more information.

Test.

edited Sep 18, 2013 at 5:41

answered Sep 18, 2013 at 5:35

Bernhard Barker

55.7k14 gold badges111 silver badges143 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

vamsiampolu Over a year ago

thanks for explaining what I was doing wrong...it worked.I had no idea you could put \s \w . and - in [].

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to Java Regex to match everything but specified pattern

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related