Remove anything but alphabets and numeric from string

Question

I've a text field on UI. It does not restrict user to enter any special char. But while storing it in DB I want anything to be removed except alphabets and numerics.

It can be done at the client (JavaScript) side or the server (Java) side (though I want to do it on server side).

I used

str.replaceAll("[^a-zA-Z0-9]", "");

to do the task, but it would give an error:

Invalid char sequence

when entered something like "24 \ 7". Is there any way to handle these kind of escape sequence or I should do it on client side(using javascript)? means remove all unwanted chars in js only?

"24 \ 7" is you string input and you want to convert this into "24 7". Am I correct? — Smit
– Smit, Commented Apr 29, 2013 at 17:45
This sounds like more of an issue of how str is created than the replace. Can you show that code? — James Montagne
– James Montagne, Commented Apr 29, 2013 at 17:51

Reimeus · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-19 13:25:02Z

3

Backslash literal characters need to occur in pairs otherwise Java will expect a carriage control character (such as \t or \n)

String str = "24 \\ 7";
                  ^

edited Mar 19, 2014 at 13:25

answered Apr 29, 2013 at 17:50

Reimeus

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