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I am developing a text highlighter in a file using the java regex pattern matching. Following is a code snapshot of it

SearchQuery=preprocessedModifiedArrayList.get(i)+[\\w\\s\\W]*?";
pattern = Pattern.compile(SearchQuery);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(EXAMPLE_TEST);

in here "preprocessedModifiedArrayList.get(i)" contains the query to be searched in the text of the file. I have a problem that when the "preprocessedModifiedArrayList.get(i)" has "+" sign in it(example: if it is an equation) , it returns the dangling + exception.

I want to know how can I deal with this problem

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1  
I think you forgot one " - ...+"[\\w\\s\\W]*?"; –  MByD Aug 23 '11 at 16:05

1 Answer 1

up vote 5 down vote accepted

You may quote it:

SearchQuery=Pattern.quote(preprocessedModifiedArrayList.get(i))+"[\\w\\s\\W]*?";

Quoting will escape every special character in the pattern so that they behave as normal characters (like +).

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@Snicolas - thanks! –  MByD Aug 23 '11 at 16:13

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