Removing special character from Java String

Question

I am trying to work around to remove symbols and special characters from a raw text in java and could not find way around. The text is taken from a free-text field in a website which may contain literally anything. I am taking this text from an external source and have no control to change setting. So I have to work around at my end. Some examples are

1) belem should be--> belem

2) Ariana should be--> Ariana

3) Harlem should be--> Harlem

4) Yz ️‍ should be--> Yz

5) ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ should be--> ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ

6) دمي ازرق وطني ازرق should be--> دمي ازرق وطني ازرق

Any help please?

So by "special characters" you mean emoji? What have you tried? — Sinkingpoint, Jun 18 '17 at 22:57
You can try using regex. Example: `yourString.replaceAll("\\W", "")` to remove all non word characters. See [regex here](https://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/java_regular_expressions.htm) — TuyenNTA, Jun 18 '17 at 22:59
Possible duplicate of [Emoji value range](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30470079/emoji-value-range) — selbie, Jun 18 '17 at 23:02
@TuyenNguyen This will also filter out all non English words — user3212493, Jun 18 '17 at 23:26

Oghli · Answer 1 · 2017-06-19T00:18:19.570

2

You can try this regex that find all emojis in a string :

regex = "[\\ud83c\\udc00-\\ud83c\\udfff]|[\\ud83d\\udc00-\\ud83d\\udfff]|[\\u2600-\\u27ff]"

then remove all the emojis in it using replaceAll() method:

String text = "ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ ";
String regex = "[\\ud83c\\udc00-\\ud83c\\udfff]|[\\ud83d\\udc00-\\ud83d\\udfff]|[\\u2600-\\u27ff]";
System.out.println(text.replaceAll(regex, ""));

Output:

ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ

edited Jun 19 '17 at 00:18

answered Jun 19 '17 at 00:12

Oghli

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@user3212493 if you find the answer helpful mark it as solved to be reference in the future. – Oghli Jun 19 '17 at 20:05

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '17 at 23:38

If you mean "special characters" are surrogate pairs, try this.

static String removeSpecial(String s) {
    int[] r = s.codePoints()
        .filter(c -> c < Character.MIN_SURROGATE)
        .toArray();
    return new String(r, 0, r.length);
}

and

String[] testStrs = {
    "belem ",
    "Ariana ",
    "Harlem ",
    "Yz ️‍",
    "ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ",
    "دمي ازرق وطني ازرق "
};

for (String s : testStrs)
    System.out.println(removeSpecial(s));

results

belem 
Ariana 
Harlem 
Yz ‍
ここさけは7回は見に行くぞ
دمي ازرق وطني ازرق

Perfect and Thanks that's what I needed – user3212493 Jun 18 '17 at 23:52 — user3212493, Jun 18 '17 at 23:52

Bohemian · Answer 3 · 2017-06-18T23:06:45.963

0

Use a character class for white space and the POSIX character class for "any letter or number from any language":

str = str.replaceAll("[^\\s\\p{Alnum}]", "");

edited Jun 18 '17 at 23:06

answered Jun 18 '17 at 23:00

Bohemian

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Removing special character from Java String

3 Answers3