Regex pattern matching

Question

Hello everyone I need a regex to replace everything inside de src= and /> tag on this line

src="../../../../../mailPhotos/assasins1.jpeg" alt="" width="284" height="177" /></p>

The code I'm trying for the regex is the following:

String regex="src=\"../../../../../ndeveloperDocuments/mailPhotos/assasins1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"177\" /></p>";
regex=regex.replaceFirst("src./>", "src='cid:"+1001+"'");

But it's not replacing anything. What I though is that the regex would do something like "replace everything between src and />", but think I'm wrong as it doesn't work. What would be a regex to use in this case?.Thanks a lot

Peter C · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-17 18:00:50Z

2

. only matches one character. To match zero or more characters, use .* and to match one or more characters use .+.

So, your code would be:

String regex="src=\"../../../../../ndeveloperDocuments/mailPhotos/assasins1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"284\" height=\"177\" /></p>";
regex=regex.replaceFirst("src.*/>", "src='cid:"+1001+"'");

answered Mar 17, 2011 at 18:00

Peter C

6,2971 gold badge28 silver badges38 bronze badges

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

2 Comments

David Weiser Over a year ago

Would this regex work on <src="../../../../../mailPhotos/assasins1.jpeg" alt="/>" width="284" height="177" /></p>?

Peter C Over a year ago

@David: Yeah. It would replace the ="../../../../../mailPhotos/assasins1.jpeg" alt="/>" width="284" height="177" part.

Ian Greenleaf Young · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-17 18:01:18Z

0

A . only matches a single character. To match any number of single characters, use .* (0 or more) or .+ (1 or more).

It's easy for this kind of matching to go wrong, however. For example, if you have a string like src="foo" /> Some other content <br /> your regex will match all the way to the final /> and swallow up tyhe other content. A common way to prevent this is to use a regex like src=[^>]+/>. The [^>] means "any character except >.

answered Mar 17, 2011 at 18:01

Ian Greenleaf Young

1,9482 gold badges15 silver badges23 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Regex pattern matching

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related