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I'm quite new to regex. Not sure how to do the follow:

Replace ":p_id" with a specific value.

For example when I simply want to replace ":p_id1" with a value, it also replaced ":p_id10" with the same value which is not what I want.

It's also possible for the ":p_id"'s to have punctuation before or after them e.g. "=:p_id1)"

Any advice?

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8  
Just go follow a regex tutorial, it will teach you all of the basics. –  Supericy May 14 '13 at 8:17
2  
What have you tried so far? –  Shobit May 14 '13 at 8:17
    
Providing the code you actually use for this procedure would help us understand what you are looking for. I would also suggest to take a look at this Java tutorial. It might help you understand how to fix it on your own (it feels better to do it yourself) –  pn7a May 14 '13 at 8:19

3 Answers 3

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Use the \b (word boundary) operator

myString.replaceAll(":p_id1\\b","some replacement");

See Pattern > Boundary matchers

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Thanks! That worked. I did have "\\b:p_id1\\b" before but that didn't seem to work. I definitely have to go and read some regex tutorials again! –  sb89 May 14 '13 at 8:55
up vote 0 down vote

You could use a negative lookahead at the end of your Pattern.

For instance: 

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(":p_id\\d(?!\\d)");
String example = ":p_id1 :p_id10";
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(example);
while (matcher.find()) System.out.println(matcher.group());

Output: 

:p_id1
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It's also possible for the ":p_id"'s to have punctuation before or after them e.g. =:p_id1 –  kocko May 14 '13 at 8:46
up vote 0 down vote

Here's the pattern I made:

 ^[=]{0,1}:p_id1\b[=]{0,1}

This matches strings like:

:p_id1
=:p_id1
:p_id1=

but doesn't match (for instance):

:p_id10
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