comma in regex in String.replaceAll() method?

Question

My code tries to replace "," with "/" in a string. Should I escape "," in the regex string? Both of the two code snippets generated the same results, so I am confused.

Code snippet 1:

    String test = "a,bc,def";

    System.out.println(test.replaceAll("\\,", "/"));

Code snippet 2:

    String test = "a,bc,def";

    System.out.println(test.replaceAll(",", "/"));

Should I use "," or "\\,"? Which is safer?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The comma isn't a special character, so no need to escape it. For more information, see http://www.regular-expressions.info/characters.html , which specifically lists special characters and then warns

All other characters should not be escaped with a backslash.