How to unescape a Java string literal in Java?

Question

I\'m processing some Java source code using Java. I\'m extracting the string literals and feeding them to a function taking a String. The problem is that I need to pass the

Answer 1

I'm a little late on this, but I thought I'd provide my solution since I needed the same functionality. I decided to use the Java Compiler API which makes it slower, but makes the results accurate. Basically I live create a class then return the results. Here is the method:

public static String[] unescapeJavaStrings(String... escaped) {
    //class name
    final String className = "Temp" + System.currentTimeMillis();
    //build the source
    final StringBuilder source = new StringBuilder(100 + escaped.length * 20).
            append("public class ").append(className).append("{\n").
            append("\tpublic static String[] getStrings() {\n").
            append("\t\treturn new String[] {\n");
    for (String string : escaped) {
        source.append("\t\t\t\"");
        //we escape non-escaped quotes here to be safe 
        //  (but something like \\" will fail, oh well for now)
        for (int i = 0; i < string.length(); i++) {
            char chr = string.charAt(i);
            if (chr == '"' && i > 0 && string.charAt(i - 1) != '\\') {
                source.append('\\');
            }
            source.append(chr);
        }
        source.append("\",\n");
    }
    source.append("\t\t};\n\t}\n}\n");
    //obtain compiler
    final JavaCompiler compiler = ToolProvider.getSystemJavaCompiler();
    //local stream for output
    final ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    //local stream for error
    ByteArrayOutputStream err = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    //source file
    JavaFileObject sourceFile = new SimpleJavaFileObject(
            URI.create("string:///" + className + Kind.SOURCE.extension), Kind.SOURCE) {
        @Override
        public CharSequence getCharContent(boolean ignoreEncodingErrors) throws IOException {
            return source;
        }
    };
    //target file
    final JavaFileObject targetFile = new SimpleJavaFileObject(
            URI.create("string:///" + className + Kind.CLASS.extension), Kind.CLASS) {
        @Override
        public OutputStream openOutputStream() throws IOException {
            return out;
        }
    };
    //file manager proxy, with most parts delegated to the standard one 
    JavaFileManager fileManagerProxy = (JavaFileManager) Proxy.newProxyInstance(
            StringUtils.class.getClassLoader(), new Class[] { JavaFileManager.class },
            new InvocationHandler() {
                //standard file manager to delegate to
                private final JavaFileManager standard = 
                    compiler.getStandardFileManager(null, null, null); 
                @Override
                public Object invoke(Object proxy, Method method, Object[] args) throws Throwable {
                    if ("getJavaFileForOutput".equals(method.getName())) {
                        //return the target file when it's asking for output
                        return targetFile;
                    } else {
                        return method.invoke(standard, args);
                    }
                }
            });
    //create the task
    CompilationTask task = compiler.getTask(new OutputStreamWriter(err), 
            fileManagerProxy, null, null, null, Collections.singleton(sourceFile));
    //call it
    if (!task.call()) {
        throw new RuntimeException("Compilation failed, output:\n" + 
                new String(err.toByteArray()));
    }
    //get the result
    final byte[] bytes = out.toByteArray();
    //load class
    Class clazz;
    try {
        //custom class loader for garbage collection
        clazz = new ClassLoader() { 
            protected Class findClass(String name) throws ClassNotFoundException {
                if (name.equals(className)) {
                    return defineClass(className, bytes, 0, bytes.length);
                } else {
                    return super.findClass(name);
                }
            }
        }.loadClass(className);
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
    //reflectively call method
    try {
        return (String[]) clazz.getDeclaredMethod("getStrings").invoke(null);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
}

It takes an array so you can unescape in batches. So the following simple test succeeds:

public static void main(String[] meh) {
    if ("1\02\03\n".equals(unescapeJavaStrings("1\\02\\03\\n")[0])) {
        System.out.println("Success");
    } else {
        System.out.println("Failure");
    }
}