regular expression and escaping
- by pstanton
Sorry if this has been asked, my search brought up many off topic posts.
I'm trying to convert wildcards from a user defined search string (wildcard is "*") to postgresql like wildcard "%".
I'd like to handle escaping so that "%" => "\%" and "\*" => "*"
I know i could replace \* with something else prior to replacing * and then swap it back, but i'd prefer not to and instead only convert * using a pattern that selects it when not proceeded by \.
String convertWildcard(String like)
{
like = like.replaceAll("%", "\\%");
like = like.replaceAll("\\*", "%");
return like;
}
Assert.assertEquals("%", convertWildcard("*"));
Assert.assertEquals("\%", convertWildcard("%"));
Assert.assertEquals("*", convertWildcard("\*")); // FAIL
Assert.assertEquals("a%b", convertWildcard("a*b"));
Assert.assertEquals("a\%b", convertWildcard("a%b"));
Assert.assertEquals("a*b", convertWildcard("a\*b")); // FAIL
ideas welcome.