String ReplaceAll method not working

Question

I'm using this method to parse out plain text URLs in some HTML and make them links

private String fixLinks(String body) {
 String regex = "^(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";
 body = body.replaceAll(regex, "<a href=\"1ドル\">1ドル</a>");
 Log.d(TAG, body);
 return body;
}

No URLs are replaced in the HTML however. The regular expression seems to be matching URLs in other regular expression testers. What's going on?

• sarumont: Can you post an example snippet of HTML? Are you sure the links are all at the beginning of the line? I'd add a \s* after the ^ to allow for whitespace.
• Affe: +1 for asking a question about replaceAll that wasn't confusion about it expecting a regex :)

Answer 1

The ^ anchor means the regex can only match at the start of the string. Try removing it.

Also, it looks like you mean 0ドル rather than 1ドル, since you want the entire match and not the first capture group, which is (https?|ftp|file).

In summary, the following works for me:

private String fixLinks(String body) {
 String regex = "(https?|ftp|file)://[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%?=~_|!:,.;]*[-a-zA-Z0-9+&@#/%=~_|]";
 body = body.replaceAll(regex, "<a href=\"0ドル\">0ドル</a>");
 Log.d(TAG, body);
 return body;
}

• SeanPONeil: Worked like a charm. You just saved me from jumping off a bridge.