Java replace pattern

Question

I need to replace the ROOMS start and end tag from an xml file.

<A><ROOMS><B></B></ROOMS></A>

becomes

<A><B></B></A>

And also

<A><ROOMS><B></B></ROOMS></A>

becomes

<A><B></B></A>

I tried

Pattern.compile("\\\\\\\\<(.*)ROOMS\\\\\\\\>").matcher(xml).replaceAll("")

, but it does not work.

Can anybody help me?

Yes, I know. But I'm constrained by my client, I have to perform this replace with the xml as a string. — JBalaguero, Jun 20 '14 at 15:29
try this ?([A-Z])\w+> as regex, but your rule is not yet clear. — rangalo, Jun 20 '14 at 15:31
@clcto - You don't *need* an XML parser to remove tags but it certainly makes the code much easier to read and maintain. — Freiheit, Jun 20 '14 at 15:50
Please see this answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/636009 — David Conrad, Jun 20 '14 at 16:27

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:33

2

Your regex is absurd. Just use:

xml = xml.replaceAll( "</?ROOMS>", "" );

answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:33

clcto

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '14 at 15:39

0

You can probably use this regex :

<[\/]?ROOMS>

edited Jun 20 '14 at 15:39

answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:30

Mayank Agarwal

You don't sound too sure. – Sotirios Delimanolis Jun 20 '14 at 15:31
It is just one of the way to do it. There are many ways to match this regex. That is why I used probably. – Mayank Agarwal Jun 20 '14 at 15:32
With this pattern I get instead of – JBalaguero Jun 20 '14 at 15:33
My bad, edited it. Please try it now. This will work. Have tested it. – Mayank Agarwal Jun 20 '14 at 15:38
@JBalaguero: Try this regex. – Mayank Agarwal Jun 20 '14 at 15:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:31

0

Try using

<[/]?ROOMS>

as your pattern. It uses the ? flag to indicate that the XML-closing forward slash should occur 0 or 1 times.

answered Jun 20 '14 at 15:31

sumitsu

`/` has no special meaning in regexes, so you don't need to enclose it in square brackets or escape it with a backslash. – Alan Moore Jun 20 '14 at 16:46

3 Answers3