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JSP: replace method???

vb has the replace function, javascript has a replace method, but i can't find anything for java. there's a replace method but that's on a charachter level (i.e. replace 'a' with 'b'). but i want to replace '<' with '<', and also a single quote with two single quotes.

what's the best way to accomplish this? regular expression?

thanks.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Chad Smith

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smueller

I think the latest jdk1.4 beta has regular expressions built in. But you can use this method to replace all occurrences of a specific character with a string:

String replaceCharacter(char oldChar, String replacement) {
StringBuffer replacedText = new StringBuffer();
int currentLocation = 0;
int charIndex;
while ((charIndex=text.indexOf(oldChar, currentLocation)) > -1) {
replacedText.append(text.substring(currentLocation, charIndex)).append(replacement);
currentLocation = charIndex + 1;
}
replacedText.append(text.substring(currentLocation, text.length()));
return replacedText.toString();
}

smueller

I found the regular expression package for jdk1.4. You can use the following code to replace all occurrences of a particular string with another string using the following code (this only works with jdk1.4):

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("<");
Matcher m = p.matcher("<html><body>'hello'</body></html>");
p = Pattern.compile("'");
m = p.matcher(m.replaceAll("<"));
String result = m.replaceAll("''");
System.out.println(result);

This gives the following output (note that the input was "<html><body>'hello'</body></html>"):

<html><body>''hello''</body></html>

Igor Bazarny

There are also third-party regex packages if you don't have control over your jdk version. One is at IBM alphaWorks, another is at Apache. But I would better write replace routine myself.

String replace(String where, String find, String insert ){
int start = where.indexOf(find);
if(start < 0){
return where;
}
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(where.substring(0,start));
buffer.append(insert);
start += find.length();
for(int pos = where.indexOf(find,start); pos>=0; pos = where.indexOf(find,start)){
buffer.append(where.substring(start,pos))
.append(insert);
start = pos+find.length();
}
buffer.append(where.sustring(start));
return buffer.toString();
}

Regards,
Igor Bazarny,
Brainbench MVP for Java 1
www.brainbench.com

msdixon

ASKER

thanks all for the comments. i'll try and use each of them (hopefully today) and see which one works best.

thanks again.

on a side note, i didn't receive email notification that the comments were posted. is anyone else having the same problem?

msdixon

ASKER

close...

i had to modify the code to:
String strTemp = "<html>";
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(strTemp);
int replaceLoc = strTemp.indexOf("<");
sb.replace(replaceLoc, replaceLoc+ 1, "<");
out.println(sb);

the way you had it, it was trying to find the indexOf method of the StringBuffer class which doesn't exist. you pointed me in the right direction, and that's what i needed.

thanks.