Java regex for any symbol?

java regex unicode character-properties
Skizit picture Skizit · Dec 3, 2010 · Viewed 16.2k times · Source

Is there a regex which accepts any symbol?

EDIT: To clarify what I'm looking for.. I want to build a regex which will accept ANY number of whitespaces and the it must contain atleast 1 symbol (e.g , . " ' $ £ etc.) or (not exclusive or) at least 1 character.

Answer

aioobe picture aioobe · Dec 3, 2010

Yes. The dot (.) will match any symbol, at least if you use it in conjunction with Pattern.DOTALL flag (otherwise it won't match new-line characters). From the docs:

In dotall mode, the expression . matches any character, including a line terminator. By default this expression does not match line terminators.

Regarding your edit:

I want to build a regex which will accept ANY number of whitespaces and the it must contain atleast 1 symbol (e.g , . " ' $ £ etc.) or (not exclusive or) at least 1 character.

Here is a suggestion:

\s*\S+
  • \s* any number of whitespace characters
  • \S+ one or more ("at least one") non-whitespace character.

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