Replace Number of Occurences in String

Question

Hi All,
I just wanted to know what is the best way to replace a string within another string for certain number of times.
I dont want to replace only the first one.
I dont want to replace all of them either.
i'm looking for something like this:
replace(input_str, old_str, new_str, nb_occurences)
e.g: replace("1xxxx0xxxx4","xx",HH,3) should print 1HHHH0HHxx4
Thanks a lot in advance.

Answer 1

Better to use regex. I'd throw this away.Actually, he is using regex, but that just makes it worse. I'd throw it away, too.
What's wrong with java.lang.String's replaceAll method?He's doing a specific number of replacements, i.e., more than one, but not all.
There's so much wrong with that code, all I can say is to re-read the last line of my previous reply and DON'T USE RECURSION! Also, please abide by the Java naming conventions: method and variable names should start with lowercase letters and should always use camelCase, not under_scores. In the meantime, here's a somewhat radical solution: public class Test
  public static void main(String... args)
    String str = "One and two and three and four and five";
    System.out.println(replaceSome(str, "and", "OR", 0));
    System.out.println(replaceSome(str, "and", "OR", 2));
    System.out.println(replaceSome(str, "and", "OR", 3));
    System.out.println(replaceSome(str, "and", "OR", -1));
  static String replaceSome(String orig, String oldStr, String newStr, int reps)
    String[] parts = orig.split("\\Q" + oldStr + "\\E", reps + 1);
    int n = parts.length - 1;
    if (n > 0)
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
        sb.append(parts).append(newStr);
sb.append(parts[n]);
return sb.toString();
else
return parts[0];