Invalid escape sequence for regex to match URL in Java

Question

I try to write regex to match URL in Java. I found the regex on the internet and it works fine in the online regex editor. When i try to run it on the eclipse, it gives following error : Invalid escape sequence (valid ones are \\b \\t \\n \\f \\r \\" \\' \\ )

(http|https):\/\/(\w+:{0,1}\w*@)?(\S+)(:[0-9]+)?(\/|\/([\w#!:.?+=&%@!\-\/]))?

How can i solve this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Note that in Java strings you have to escape backslashes (ie \\ would result in the string literal "\\\\" ). Thus the expression should look like this:

String expression = "(http|https):\\/\\/(\\w+:{0,1}\\w*@)?(\\S+)(:[0-9]+)?(\\/|\\/([\\w#!:.?+=&%@!\\-\\/]))?";