Regex Java replacing ["item1", "item2"] with item1, item2

Question

I don't use regex that much so I am having some troubles with this right now. I'm trying to replace ["item1", "item2"] with item1, item2 using string.replaceAll() . However, I don't know how do I match the [ , and I don't know how to replace all special characters but the comma.

Answer 1

You can use following regular expression to solve your problem.

String s = "[\"item1\", \"item2\"]";
System.out.println(s.replaceAll("\\[\"([a-z0-9]*)\",\\s*\"([a-z0-9]+)\"\\]", "$1, $2"));

Note that I have use parenthesis to group what I wanted and use them in the replace string. Your groups will identify as $1, $2, $3... as it appears in your regular expression.