How to check if a string contains two asterisk characters?

Question

We have a string input and the following combinations are valid (e.g. sunday, *sunday*, sun*day*, *sun*day, su*nda*y) If it contains only a single asterisk, then it is a bad input.

So given the above input, how do I check to see if the string contains multiple asterisks.

Answer 1

int asterisk1 = input.indexOf('*');
boolean hasTowAsterisks = asterisk1 != -1 && input.indexOf('*', asterisk1+1) != -1;

Edit: this solution assumed that the requirement was "has at least two asterisks".

Answer 2

You could use String.matches with a regular expression:

"^.*(?:\\*.*){2}$"

If you want exactly two asterisks:

"^[^*]*(?:\\*[^*]*){2}$"

Though for this task it might be simpler just to iterate over the string and count the asterisks.