PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition when using regex in Java

Question

I don’t know many regular expressions, but I need to match a simple pattern. The following should return true,

Pattern.matches("{\"user_id\" : [0-9]*}", inputLine) 

when inputLine

 {"user_id" : 34} 

However, I get this exception:

 java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition {"user_id" : 24} at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.closure(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source) at java.util.regex.Pattern.matches(Unknown Source) at org.whispercomm.manes.server.http.IntegrationTest.createUser(IntegrationTest.java:173) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source) at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:45) at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15) at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:42) at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.InvokeMethod.evaluate(InvokeMethod.java:20) at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:28) at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:30) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runLeaf(ParentRunner.java:263) at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:68) at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:47) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:231) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:60) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:229) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:50) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:222) at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:28) at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:300) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:50) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390) at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197) 

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

{ and } are special in the Java regex dialect (and most other dialects): these are opening and closing tokens for the repetition quantifier {n,m} , where n and m are integers. From here the error message: "Illegal repetition" appears.

You should avoid them: "\\{\"user_id\" : [0-9]*\\}" .

And since you are trying to parse JSON, I suggest you take a look at Jackson .

Answer 2

There should be a plus operator:

 user_id : [0-9]+ 

Double apostrophes only when the string should contain it.

When a line containing curly braces uses:

 \{user_id : [0-9]+\}