the correct regex for replacing em-dash with a basic "-" in java

Question

My question concerns the replaceAll method of String class.

My purpose is to replace all the em-dashes in a text with a basic "-". I know the unicode character of em-dash is \u2014.

I tried it in the following way:

String s = "asd – asd";
s = s.replaceAll("\u2014", "-");

Still, the em-dash is not replaced. What is it I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

Minor edit after question edit:

You might not be using an em-dash at all. If you're not sure what you have, a nice solution is to simply find and replace all dashes... em or otherwise. Take a look at this answer, you can try to use the Unicode dash punctuation property for all dashes ==> \\p{Pd}

String s = "asd – asd";
s = s.replaceAll("\\p{Pd}", "-");

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Working example replacing an em dash and regular dash both with the above code.

References:
public String replaceAll(String regex, String replacement)
Unicode Regular Expressions

Answer 2

Based on what you posted, the problem may not actually lie with your code, but with your assumed dash. What you have looks like an en dash (width of a capital N) rather than an em dash (width of a capital M). The Unicode for the en dash is U+2013, try using that instead and see if it updates properly.