Redundant Character and Number Expected errors with RegEx expression

I’m writing a script to get out all the instances of #{ text } from a string so I can make it dynamic.

How can I use the Regex expression #{(.*?)} without running into errors?

I know the regex works, but I can’t assign it to a String because of the characters.

Thanks

>Solution :

In regex, hash(#) doesn’t need escaping as it doesn’t hold any special value.

In Java, you only need to escape opening curly braces { hence the correct regex you need to write is, #\{.*?} and in Java you need to escape \ character as it itself is a escape character hence the correct declaration should be #\\{.*?}

Try out this Java code,

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String s = "Dear #{abc}, your balance is #{xyz}";
    String regex = "#\\{.*?}";
    System.out.println("Before: " + s);
    s = s.replaceAll(regex, "test");
    System.out.println("After: " + s);
}

Which prints following as desired,

Before: Dear #{abc}, your balance is #{xyz}
After: Dear test, your balance is test

Also, for grabbing any character non-exhaustively, you can write [^}]* instead of .*? as former will perform better.