java delimiter error

Question

i want to delimite "/*" in my string:

for example

String str="6666 /* 555 / 777 * ttt";

// And result should be
result= 6666 ,  555 / 777 * ttt

i wrote the program with

String[] line_split=line_str.split("/*");

and i get this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '*' near index 0 *

anyone has a solution for me?

One fairly obvious solution is to google for 'java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '*' near '... — home, Nov 07 '12 at 19:59

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 07 '12 at 19:59

5

String.split takes Regex for splitting. And * is a meta-character in Regex which has special meaning - matches 0 or more of pattern preceding it.

You need to escape that: -

String[] line_split=line_str.split("/\\*");

answered Nov 07 '12 at 19:59

Rohit Jain

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 07 '12 at 20:00

The error message says:

Dangling meta character '*' near index 0 *

* is a regex metacharacter, you need to escape it with \\.

In such a situation you can use Pattern class to build your regex as follows:

String regex = Pattern.quote("/*");
System.out.println(regex);

The output is

\Q/*\E

which is your regex.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 07 '12 at 20:55

So yes, it's a meta. But the expression in question, /* is a valid regex. This actually works, only doesn't give the expected result:

System.out.println(Arrays.toString("aoeuaoue".split("/*")));

Therofore you have not pasted code that reproduces your problem. But I suppose the real string to replace is something similar, but illegal as a regex.

java delimiter error

3 Answers3