java regex for matching multiline nested annotation

Question

i'm trying to write a java regular expression to remove all the annotation from my code ,i have some pretty complex annotation that are nested and thus far i could only match on the inner annotations , here is an exemple of my annotations

@annotationA(property1 = "",
        property2 = "",
        property3 = "",
        property4 = "",
        property5 = "")
public class ClassA {

    @annotationB(property1 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar",
            property6 = false,
            property1 = "anyChar",
            property2 = "anyChar",
            property3 = "anyChar",
            property4 = "anyChar"),
            params = { @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")),
                    @annotationC(property7 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"), property8 = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar")), },
            returnType = @annotationA(property5 = "anyChar"))
    //some methode

}

and here is my regex (not escaped):

@\w+\([\n\w\s=\-"\@,.*:// {\+ }\.;+]+\)

Regular expressions are not the right tool to parse java language. You may consider using a parser generator like antlr, although the learning curve might be steep. You can find ready-made grammar for java language at github.com/antlr/grammars-v4/blob/master/java/Java.g4 — Gowtham
– Gowtham, Commented Oct 4, 2015 at 16:44

Deltharis · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-04 16:53:53Z

1

If you're trying to remove the annotations, and you have a regex that will find non-nested ones you are basically done. Unless it's a performance-sensitive task, you can just iterate that regex over and over again, each time deleting what it matches. After inner annotations are deleted there will no longer be a nested one to take care of. End the process when the regex can't match anything and you're done!

Your example (in Notepad++) took 3 replaceAlls to clean completely, which looks acceptable.

answered Oct 4, 2015 at 16:53

Deltharis

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