issue with regular expression in java

Question

I have this string in format of XML

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>n
  <objectA>n
  <command>Existing</command>n
  <status>OK</status>n
  <values>a lot of values....</values>n
  </objectA>

I want to split it to array of string just with the value and content

     [0] objectA = ""
     [1] command = Existing
     [2] status = ok
     [3] values = a lot of values....

I tried

 result = result.replaceAll(">n<", "><"); //$NON-NLS-1$ //$NON-NLS-2$
 Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("<*?>*?</*?>"); //$NON-NLS-1$

but is is not working for me

I'm not sure but have you tried to replace all line breaks(\n) first and then run your pattern. What isn't working? Any error message? — ZeusNet, Aug 20 '13 at 07:45
Just use an XML parser. Trying to parse with a regex is extremely fragile even if you get it working. Also, are those "n" characters at the end of the lines supposed to be line breaks ("\n")? — Ted Hopp, Aug 20 '13 at 07:45
[You must not use regex to parse XML.](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1907906) — , Aug 20 '13 at 07:47

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 20 '13 at 07:48

Why not just use an XML Parser?

Element docElem = document.getDocumentElement();

NodeList children = docElem.getChildNodes();

List<String> values = new ArrayList<String>();

for(int x = 0; x < children.getLength(); x++)
{
     // Do what you want with children. That came out wrong.
}

issue with regular expression in java

1 Answers1