Remove all the special characters using java.util.regex

Question

Hi,
How to remove the all the special characters in a String[] using regex, i have the following:-
public class RegExpTest {
     private static String removeSplCharactersForNumber(String[] number) {
          String number= null;
          Matcher m = null;
               Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\!\\@\\#\\$\\%\\^\\&\\*\\(\\)\\_\\+\\-\\{\\}\\|\\;\\\\\\'////\\,\\.\\?\\<\\>\\[\\]");
               for (int i = 0; i < number.length; i++) {
               m = p.matcher(number);
               if (m.find()) {
                    number= m.replaceAll("");
               System.out.println("Final Number is:::"+number);
               return number;
          public static void main(String args[]){
               String[] str = {"raghav!@#$%^&*()_+"};
               RegExpTest regExpTest = new RegExpTest();
               regExpTest.removeSplCharactersForNumber(str);
This code is not working and m.find() is "false", here i want the output to be raghav for the entered string array, not only that it should remove all the special characters for a entered string[]. Is there a simple way to do this to remove all the special characters for a given string[]? More importantly the "spaces" (treated as a spl. character), should be removed as well. Please do provide a solution to this.
Thanks

Answer 1

You don't need the find(). Just use the replaceAll() on each element of the String[] i.e.
String[] values = ...
for (int i = 0; i < values.length; i++)
    values[i] = p.matcher(values).replaceAll("");
}I can't understand your regex since the forum software has mangled it but you just need to add a space to the set of chars to remove. When you post code, surround it with CODE tags then the forum software won't mangle it.