RegEx replace second closing tag in a String

Question

I'm trying to replace the second closing tag > in an String Something="<!-- comm --!><tag titi="string1" toto="string2">" using regex in java.

Something.replaceFirst( "^?>","XXXX")

replace the first >

I would like to replace the second closing tag > after string2 to have this result

Something="<!-- comm --!><tag titi="string1" toto="string2"XXXX"

I'm not really familiar with regex. What am I must doing? Thanks

It's actually quite tricky to do what you're doing. You basically need to count the number of > instances, and then splice the string. Regex can only help you a little bit with this! It looks like you're hacking some html. Maybe use a tool like jsoup which is built to do this? — Matthew
– Matthew, Commented May 28, 2020 at 16:35

Charlie Armstrong · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-28 17:27:32Z

1

You could match everything, but use capturing groups, so you can paste everything back in around the XXXX.

String something = "<!-- comm --!><tag titi=\"string1\" toto=\"string2\">";
System.out.println(something.replaceFirst("(^.+?>.+?)>(.*$)", "$1XXXX$2"));

( starts the first capturing group
^ anchors to the start of a line
.+? matches one or more of any character as few times as it has to
> matches '>' literally
) ends the first capturing group
> matches '>' literally again, this is the only thing not in a capturing group
( starts capturing group 2
.* matches 0 or more of any character
$ anchors to the end of the line
$1 refers to the first capturing group (everything before the second '>')
$2 refers to the second capturing group (everything that might come after the second '>')

edited May 28, 2020 at 17:27

answered May 28, 2020 at 16:37

Charlie Armstrong

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7 Comments

Matthew Over a year ago

You can do this with a single \K right?: .+?>.+?\K>

Charlie Armstrong Over a year ago

Possibly, although I remember now java doesn't like \K very much - if I were you I'd scrap the solution I just gave you and I'll edit my answer with a more java-friendly one.

Charlie Armstrong Over a year ago

Updated my answer to use capturing groups, I think you'll find they work better in java.

Charlie Armstrong Over a year ago

That's odd... it works for me. Have you tried stripping it down to a simple test case? I edited my code to include a println, try just copying that verbatim into your main method and see what happens.

Leyo Over a year ago

It doesn't work for me because I have another tag in the com Something="<!-- <comm> --!><tag titi="string1" toto="string2">" I think that I must Add .+?> in the $1 to have this something.replaceFirst("(^.+?>.+?>.+?)>(.*$)", "$1XXXX$2")

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