pattern matching for String having "{"

Question

First I did this -

String str = "{\"hits\":[{\"links_count\":6,\"forum_count\":11}],\"totalHitCount\":1}";

        Assert.assertTrue(str.matches("{\"hits\":[{\"links_count\":[0-9]{1,},\"forum_count   \":11}],\"totalHitCount\":[0-9]{1,}}"),
            "Partnership message does not appear");

This got me following error -

 Exception in thread "main" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition
{"hits":[\{"links_count":[0-9]{1,},"forum_count":11}],"totalHitCount":[0-9]{1,}}

Then I did (escapes the "{") -

String str = "\\{\"hits\":[\\{\"links_count\":6,\"forum_count\":11\\}],\"totalHitCount\":1\\}";

    Assert.assertTrue(str.matches("\\{\"hits\":[\\{\"links_count\":[0-9]{1,},\"forum_count\":11\\}],\"totalHitCount\":[0-9]{1,}\\}"),
            "Partnership message does not appear");

and got the the following error -

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AssertionError: Partnership message does not appear expected:<true> but was:<false>

What am I missing here?

Answer 1

You don't need to escape { [ in your input. But you need to escape [ ] in your regex.

Try this:

String str = "{\"hits\":[{\"links_count\":6,\"forum_count\":11}],\"totalHitCount\":1}";

System.out.println(str.matches("\\{\"hits\":\\[\\{\"links_count\":[0-9]{1,},\"forum_count\":11\\}\\],\"totalHitCount\":[0-9]{1,}\\}"));