Regular expressions: exclusion in character class

Question

I want to match an alphabet range between a and z, except x.

I am using java.util.regex API for this.

My pattern:

[a-z^x] // here a-z shows a range between a to z and ^ means negation

Example

If I type "a", it should match.
If I type "x", it shouldn't match

What have you tried so far? Please add the code which isen't working as expected — JohannisK, May 27 '16 at 13:29

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 27 '16 at 13:30

You can rewrite your Pattern as follows:

[a-z&&[^x]]

Example

String[] test = {"abcd", "abcdx"};
//                         | range
//                         |   | and
//                         |   | | new class excluding "x"
//                         |   | |    | adding quantifier for this example
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[a-z&&[^x]]+");
for (String s: test) {
    System.out.println(p.matcher(s).matches());
}

Output

true
false

Regular expressions: exclusion in character class

1 Answers1