java - check String contents

Question

I need to perform the following check:

IF myString.contains()

ANY CHARACTERS OTHER THAN

letters a-z, A-Z, "_", "-", numbers 0-9

THEN .....

whats is the correct java syntax for such a check?

Answer 1

You could use a regular expression

Pattern badChar = Pattern.compile("[^A-Za-z0-9_-]");
if(badChar.matcher(myString).find()) {
  // ...
}

This pattern will match any single character apart from letters, numbers, underscore and hyphen.