How to escape text for regular expression in Java

Question

Does Java have a built-in way to escape arbitrary text so that it can be included in a regular expression? For example, if my users enter \"$5\", I\'d like to match that exa

Answer 1

To have protected pattern you may replace all symbols with "\\\\", except digits and letters. And after that you can put in that protected pattern your special symbols to make this pattern working not like stupid quoted text, but really like a patten, but your own. Without user special symbols.

public class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String str = "y z (111)";
        String p1 = "x x (111)";
        String p2 = ".* .* \\(111\\)";

        p1 = escapeRE(p1);

        p1 = p1.replace("x", ".*");

        System.out.println( p1 + "-->" + str.matches(p1) ); 
            //.*\ .*\ \(111\)-->true
        System.out.println( p2 + "-->" + str.matches(p2) ); 
            //.* .* \(111\)-->true
    }

    public static String escapeRE(String str) {
        //Pattern escaper = Pattern.compile("([^a-zA-z0-9])");
        //return escaper.matcher(str).replaceAll("\\\\$1");
        return str.replaceAll("([^a-zA-Z0-9])", "\\\\$1");
    }
}