Determine if a String is XML using Java and Regular Expressions
January 29, 2009 1 Comment
So again I am posting something I have to do every now and then and have to spend time, each time, to check the pattern or usage etc. for.
Once in a while, in an app that does not do much XML, and therefore is not already using an XML parser of some kind, will need to at the least, determine if a String is XML. With a pretty simple Regular Expression, it is possible using plain old Java and without using any specific XML technology.
I know there are other references out there for doing this, but it is here below as a code sample, for my easy reference and maybe it will help someone else out, who knows. Enjoy.
Are we XML (like) data? :
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
public class test {
/**
* return true if the String passed in is something like XML
*
*
* @param inString a string that might be XML
* @return true of the string is XML, false otherwise
*/
public static boolean isXMLLike(String inXMLStr) {
boolean retBool = false;
Pattern pattern;
Matcher matcher;
// REGULAR EXPRESSION TO SEE IF IT AT LEAST STARTS AND ENDS
// WITH THE SAME ELEMENT
final String XML_PATTERN_STR = "<(\\S+?)(.*?)>(.*?)</\\1>";
// IF WE HAVE A STRING
if (inXMLStr != null && inXMLStr.trim().length() > 0) {
// IF WE EVEN RESEMBLE XML
if (inXMLStr.trim().startsWith("<")) {
pattern = Pattern.compile(XML_PATTERN_STR,
Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE | Pattern.DOTALL | Pattern.MULTILINE);
// RETURN TRUE IF IT HAS PASSED BOTH TESTS
matcher = pattern.matcher(inXMLStr);
retBool = matcher.matches();
}
// ELSE WE ARE FALSE
}
return retBool;
}
}/**/
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