Trim unwanted characters in a Java String

Question

I have few Java Strings like below:

ab-android-regression-4.4-git
ab-ios-regression-4.4-git
ab-tablet-regression-4.4-git

However, I do not want such lengthy and unwanted names and so I want to get rid of starting ab- and ending -git part. The pattern for all the Strings is the same (starts with ab and ends with git)

Is there a function/class in Java that will help me in trimming such things? For example, something like:

String test = "ab-android-regression-4.4-git";
test.trim(ab, git)

Also, can StringUtils class help me with this? Thoughts on regular expressions?

EDITED PART: I also want to know how to eliminate the - characters in the Strings and change everything to uppercase letters

Michael Markidis · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-27 20:53:55Z

2

Here's a method that's more general purpose to remove a prefix and suffix from a string:

public static String trim (String str, String prefix, String suffix)
{
    int indexOfLast = str.lastIndexOf(suffix);

    // Note: you will want to do some error checking here 
    // in case the suffix does not occur in the passed in String

    str = str.substring(0, indexOfLast);

    return str.replaceFirst(prefix, "");
}

Usage:

String test = "ab-android-regression-4.4-git";
String trim = trim(test, "ab-", "-git"));

To remove the "-" and make uppercase, then just do:

trim = trim.replaceAll("-", " ").toUpperCase();

edited Apr 27, 2016 at 20:53

answered Apr 27, 2016 at 20:48

Michael Markidis

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Zircon · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-27 20:29:58Z

2

You can use test = test.replace("ab-", "") and similar for the "-git" or you can use test = StringUtils.removeStart(test, "ab-") and similarly, removeEnd.

I prefer the latter if you can use StringUtils because it won't ever accidentally remove the middle of the filename if those expressions are matched.

answered Apr 27, 2016 at 20:29

Zircon

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2 Comments

Pratik Jaiswal Over a year ago

Thanks, I just edited my question to eliminate more data and change to uppercase letters.

Zircon Over a year ago

If you want spaces instead of hyphens, use test.replaceAll("-"," "). If you want no spaces use test.replaceAll("-",""). If you want all uppercase letters, use test.toUpperCase(). If you want real capital casing on each word, you'll need to do some of your own logic.

Aaron · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-27 20:28:27Z

1

Since the parts to trim are constant in size, you should simply use substring :

yourString.substring(3, yourString.length - 4)

answered Apr 27, 2016 at 20:28

Aaron

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1 Comment

Pratik Jaiswal Over a year ago

Thanks, I just edited my question to eliminate more data and change to uppercase letters.

venkatesh · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-28 05:42:13Z

0

If your string always contains ab- at the begining and -git at the end then here is the code

String test = "ab-android-regression-4.4-git";
test=test.substring(3, s.length() - 4);
System.out.println("s is"+s);  //output is android-regression-4.4

To know more about substrings click https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/data/manipstrings.html

edited Apr 28, 2016 at 5:42

answered Apr 28, 2016 at 5:36

venkatesh

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