Another Java RegEx question

Question

I have the following code:

public static void main(String[] args){
    StringBuilder content = new StringBuilder("abcd efg h i. -  – jk(lmn) qq zz.");
    String patternSource = "[.-–]($| )";
    Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(patternSource);
    Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(content);
    System.out.println(matcher.replaceAll(""));
}

where patternSource character class consist of dot, minus sign and \u2013 character (something like long dash). Upon execution in gives me

abcefi-  jk(lmn) qzz

If I change the order of symbols in my character class in any way, it begans to work normally, and gives

abcd efg h i jk(lmn) qq zz

What the hell?

Tested under JDK/JRE 1.6.0_23

Mark Byers · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-10 06:51:21Z

4

If you have an unescaped hyphen in a character class it has a special meaning as a range of characters: e.g. [A-Z] means all the characters between A and Z.

An exception to this is when the hyphen is at the start or end of the character class, in which case it is treated literally and matches only a hyphen.

answered Feb 10, 2011 at 6:51

Mark Byers

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2 Comments

Geoffrey De Smet Over a year ago

Mark this answer as answered by clicking on the V to the left.

Alex Abdugafarov Over a year ago

I know, but at that moment time limit didn't elapsed yet.

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