Java - regular expression finding comments in code

Question

A little fun with Java this time. I want to write a program that reads a code from standard input (line by line, for example), like:

// some         


        

Answer 1

I ended up with this solution.

public class CommentsFun {
    static List commentMatches = new ArrayList();

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Pattern commentsPattern = Pattern.compile("(//.*?$)|(/\\*.*?\\*/)", Pattern.MULTILINE | Pattern.DOTALL);
        Pattern stringsPattern = Pattern.compile("(\".*?(? commentsToRemove = new ArrayList();

        Matcher stringsMatcher = stringsPattern.matcher(text);
        while (stringsMatcher.find()) {
            for (Match comment : commentMatches) {
                if (comment.start > stringsMatcher.start() && comment.start < stringsMatcher.end())
                    commentsToRemove.add(comment);
            }
        }
        for (Match comment : commentsToRemove)
            commentMatches.remove(comment);

        for (Match comment : commentMatches)
            text = text.replace(comment.text, " ");

        System.out.println(text);
    }

    //Single-line

    // "String? Nope"

    /*
    * "This  is not String either"
    */

    //Complex */
    ///*More complex*/

    /*Single line, but */

    String moreFun = " /* comment? doubt that */";

    String evenMoreFun = " // comment? doubt that ";

    static class Match {
        int start;
        String text;
    }
}