How would I remove apostrophe from the start and end of words, but not from within the word?

Question

While reading and learning about regex, I have been trying to figure out why I go wrong in the current usage of my regex?

The string I have is

String sentence = "I would've rather stayed at home, than go to the Murphys' home, on the 'golden' weekend";

The current replaceAll argument I use is:

String[] tokens = sentence.replaceAll("[^\\sA-Za-z']+", "").split("\\s+");

This gives me an array of tokens that looks like

tokens = {"I", "__would've__", "rather", "stayed", "at", "home", "than", "go", "to", "the", "__Murphys'__", "home", "on", "the", "__'golden'__", "weekend"};

But I would like to remove the apostrophe from Murphys' to Murphys and 'golden' to golden while would've stays as would've.

Giving me an array that looks like

correctTokens = {"I", "__would've__", "rather", "stayed", "at", "home", "than", "go", "to", "the", "__Murphys__", "home", "on", "the", "__golden__", "weekend"};

Your help would be greatly appreciated

I think you missed one `the` before `Murphys` in the expected output. What about a matching approach? See https://ideone.com/kY71Py — Wiktor Stribiżew, Oct 18 '18 at 18:08
Duly Noted. Also, any advice for how I could tackle my predicament? — Dan Murphy, Oct 18 '18 at 18:12
Use `"\\p{L}+(?:'\\p{L}+)?"` to collect matches. Or, `"(?U)\\b\\p{L}+(?:'\\p{L}+)?\\b"` — Wiktor Stribiżew, Oct 18 '18 at 18:12

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '18 at 18:16

0

Use replaceAll("[^\\h\\v\\p{L}']+|(?<=\\P{L}|^)'|'(?=\\P{L}|$)", "")

Explanation:

[^\h\v\p{L}']+ One or more characters that are not:
- Unicode (horizontal or vertical) whitespace
- Unicode letter
- Apostrophe '
| or
(?<=\P{L}|^)' A apostrophe preceded by a non-letter or beginning of input
| or
'(?=\P{L}|$) A apostrophe followed by a non-letter or end of input

See regex101.com for demo.

answered Oct 18 '18 at 18:16

Andreas

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`(?<=\P{L}|^)` is less efficient and portable than `(?<!\p{L})`. Also cf. `(?=\P{L}|$)` vs. `(?!\p{L})`. `[\h\v]` = `(?U)\s`. – Wiktor Stribiżew Oct 18 '18 at 18:20

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 18 '18 at 18:18

try regex: \\s'|'\\s and replace with space

String sentence = "I would've rather stayed at home, than go to the Murphys' home, on the 'golden' weekend";

String[] tokens = sentence.replaceAll("\\s'|'\\s", " ").split("\s+");

output

[I, would've, rather, stayed, at, home,, than, go, to, the, Murphys, home,, on, the, golden, weekend]

How would I remove apostrophe from the start and end of words, but not from within the word?

2 Answers2