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Masking credit card number using regex

I am trying to mask the CC number, in a way that third character and last three characters are unmasked.
For eg.. 7108898787654351 to **0**********351
I have tried (?<=.{3}).(?=.*...). It unmasked last three characters. But it unmasks first three also.
Can you throw some pointers on how to unmask 3rd character alone?

You can use this regex with a lookahead and lookbehind:
str = str.replaceAll("(?<!^..).(?=.{3})", "*");
//=> **0**********351
RegEx Demo
RegEx Details:
(?<!^..): Negative lookahead to assert that we don't have 2 characters after start behind us (to exclude 3rd character from matching)
.: Match a character
(?=.{3}): Positive lookahead to assert that we have at least 3 characters ahead

I would suggest that regex isn't the only way to do this.
char[] m = new char[16]; // Or whatever length.
Arrays.fill(m, '*');
m[2] = cc.charAt(2);
m[13] = cc.charAt(13);
m[14] = cc.charAt(14);
m[15] = cc.charAt(15);
String masked = new String(m);
It might be more verbose, but it's a heck of a lot more readable (and debuggable) than a regex.

Here is another regular expression:
(?!(?:\D*\d){14}$|(?:\D*\d){1,3}$)\d
See the online demo
It may seem a bit unwieldy but since a credit card should have 16 digits I opted to use negative lookaheads to look for an x amount of non-digits followed by a digit.
(?! - Negative lookahead
(?: - Open 1st non capture group.
\D*\d - Match zero or more non-digits and a single digit.
){14} - Close 1st non capture group and match it 14 times.
$ - End string ancor.
| - Alternation/OR.
(?: - Open 2nd non capture group.
\D*\d - Match zero or more non-digits and a single digit.
){1,3} - Close 2nd non capture group and match it 1 to 3 times.
$ - End string ancor.
) - Close negative lookahead.
\d - Match a single digit.
This would now mask any digit other than the third and last three regardless of their position (due to delimiters) in the formatted CC-number.

Apart from where the dashes are after the first 3 digits, leave the 3rd digit unmatched and make sure that where are always 3 digits at the end of the string:
(?<!^\d{2})\d(?=[\d-]*\d-?\d-?\d$)
Explanation
(?<! Negative lookbehind, assert what is on the left is not
^\d{2} Match 2 digits from the start of the string
) Close lookbehind
\d Match a digit
(?= Positive lookahead, assert what is on the right is
[\d-]* 0+ occurrences of either - or a digit
\d-?\d-?\d Match 3 digits with optional hyphens
$ End of string
) Close lookahead
Regex demo | Java demo
Example code
String regex = "(?<!^\\d{2})\\d(?=[\\d-]*\\d-?\\d-?\\d$)";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regex, Pattern.MULTILINE);
String strings[] = { "7108898787654351", "7108-8987-8765-4351"};
for (String s : strings) {
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(s);
System.out.println(matcher.replaceAll("*"));
}
Output
**0**********351
**0*-****-****-*351

Don't think you should use a regex to do what you want. You could use StringBuilder to create the required string
String str = "7108-8987-8765-4351";
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("*".repeat(str.length()));
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
if (i == 2 || i >= str.length() - 3) {
sb.replace(i, i + 1, String.valueOf(str.charAt(i)));
}
}
System.out.print(sb.toString()); // output: **0*************351

You may add a ^.{0,1} alternative to allow matching . when it is the first or second char in the string:
String s = "7108898787654351"; // **0**********351
System.out.println(s.replaceAll("(?<=.{3}|^.{0,1}).(?=.*...)", "*"));
// => **0**********351
The regex can be written as a PCRE compliant pattern, too: (?<=.{3}|^|^.).(?=.*...).
The regex can be written as a PCRE compliant pattern, too: (?<=.{3}|^|^.).(?=.*...).
It is equal to
System.out.println(s.replaceAll("(?<!^..).(?=.*...)", "*"));
See the Java demo and a regex demo.
Regex details
(?<=.{3}|^.{0,1}) - there must be any three chars other than line break chars immediately to the left of the current location, or start of string, or a single char at the start of the string
(?<!^..) - a negative lookbehind that fails the match if there are any two chars other than line break chars immediately to the left of the current location
. - any char but a line break char
(?=.*...) - there must be any three chars other than line break chars immediately to the right of the current location.

If the CC number always has 16 digits, as it does in the example, and as do Visa and MasterCard CC's, matches of the following regular expression can be replaced with an asterisk.
\d(?!\d{0,2}$|\d{13}$)
Start your engine!

Regex to match a digit not followed by a dot(".")

I have a string
string 1(excluding the quotes) -> "my car number is #8746253 which is actually cool"
conditions - The number 8746253, could be of any length and
- the number can also be immediately followed by an end-of-line.
I want to group-out 8746253 which should not be followed by a dot "."
I have tried,
.*#(\d+)[^.].*
This will get me the number for sure, but this will match even if there is a dot, because [.^] will match the last digit of the number(for example, 3 in the below case)
string 2(excluding the quotes) -> "earth is #8746253.Kms away, which is very far"
I want to match only the string 1 type and not the string 2 types.

To match any number of digits after # that are not followed with a dot, use
(?<=#)\d++(?!\.)
The ++ is a possessive quantifier that will make the regex engine only check the lookahead (?!\.) only after the last matched digit, and won't backtrack if there is a dot after that. So, the whole match will get failed if there is a dit after the last digit in a digit chunk.
See the regex demo
To match the whole line and put the digits into capture group #1:
.*#(\d++)(?!\.).*
See this regex demo. Or a version without a lookahead:
^.*#(\d++)(?:[^.\r\n].*)?$
See another demo. In this last version, the digit chunk can only be followed with an optional sequence of a char that is not a ., CR and LF followed with any 0+ chars other than line break chars ((?:[^.\r\n].*)?) and then the end of string ($).

This works like you have described
public class MyRegex{
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pattern patern = Pattern.compile("#(\\d++)[^\\.]");
Matcher matcher1 = patern.matcher("my car number is #8746253 which is actually cool");
if(matcher1.find()){
System.out.println(matcher1.group(1));
}
Matcher matcher2 = patern.matcher("earth is #8746253.Kms away, which is very far");
if(matcher2.find()){
System.out.println(matcher1.group(1));
}else{
System.out.println("No match found");
}
}
}
Outputs:
> 8746253
> No match found

How can I strip all non digits in a string except the first character?

I have a string that I want to make sure that the format is always a + followed by digits.
The following would work:
String parsed = inputString.replaceAll("[^0-9]+", "");
if(inputString.charAt(0) == '+') {
result = "+" + parsed;
}
else {
result = parsed;
}
But is there a way to have a regex in the replaceAll that would keep the + (if exists) in the beginning of the string and replace all non digits in the first line?

The following statement with the given regex would do the job:
String result = inputString.replaceAll("(^\\+)|[^0-9]", "$1");
(^\\+) find either a plus sign at the beginning of string and put it to a group ($1),
| or
[^0-9] find a character which is not a number
$1 and replace it with nothing or the plus sign at the start of group ($1)

You can use this expression:
String r = s.replaceAll("((?<!^)[^0-9]|^[^0-9+])", "");
The idea is to replace any non-digit when it is not the initial character of the string (that's the (?<!^)[^0-9] part with a lookbehind) or any character that is not a digit or plus that is the initial character of the string (the ^[^0-9+] part).
Demo.

What about just
(?!^)\D+
Java string:
"(?!^)\\D+"
Demo at regex101.com
\D matches a character that is not a digit [^0-9]
(?!^) using a negative lookahead to check, if it is not the initial character

Yes you can use this kind of replacement:
String parsed = inputString.replaceAll("^[^0-9+]*(\\+)|[^0-9]+", "$1");
if present and before the first digit in the string, the + character is captured in group 1. For example: dfd+sdfd12+sdf12 returns +1212 (the second + is removed since its position is after the first digit).

try this
1- This will allow negative and positive number and will match app special char except - and + at first position.
(?!^[-+])[^0-9.]
2- If you only want to allow + at first position
(?!^[+])[^0-9.]

Remove leading trailing non numeric characters from a string in Java

I need to strip off all the leading and trailing characters from a string upto the first and last digit respectively.
Example : OBC9187A-1%A
Should return : 9187A-1
How do I achieve this in Java?
I understand regex is the solution, but I am not good at it.
I tried this replaceAll("([^0-9.*0-9])","")
But it returns only digits and strips all the alpha/special characters.

Here is a self-contained example of using regex and java to solve your problem. I would suggest looking at a regex tutorial of some kind here is a nice one.
public static void main(String[] args) throws FileNotFoundException {
String test = "OBC9187A-1%A";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\d.*\\d");
Matcher m = p.matcher(test);
while (m.find()) {
System.out.println("Match: " + m.group());
}
}
Output:
Match: 9187A-1
\d matches any digit .* matches anything 0 or more times \d matches any digit. The reason we use \\d is to escape the \ for Java since \ is a special character...So this regex will match a digit followed by anything followed by another digit. This is greedy so it will take the longest/largest/greediest match so it will get the first and last digit and anything in between. The while loop is there because if there was more than 1 match it would loop through all matches. In this case there can only be 1 match so you can leave the while loop or change to if like this:
if(m.find())
{
System.out.println("Match: " + m.group());
}

This will strip leading and trailing non-digit characters from string s.
String s = "OBC9187A-1%A";
s = s.replaceAll("^\\D+", "").replaceAll("\\D+$", "");
System.out.println(s);
// prints 9187A-1
DEMO
Regex explanation
^\D+
^ assert position at start of the string
\D+ match any character that's not a digit [^0-9]
Quantifier: + Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible
\D+$
\D+ match any character that's not a digit [^0-9]
Quantifier: + Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible
$ assert position at end of the string

How can I find repeated characters with a regex in Java?

Can anyone give me a Java regex to identify repeated characters in a string? I am only looking for characters that are repeated immediately and they can be letters or digits.
Example:
abccde <- looking for this (immediately repeating c's)
abcdce <- not this (c's seperated by another character)

Try "(\\w)\\1+"
The \\w matches any word character (letter, digit, or underscore) and the \\1+ matches whatever was in the first set of parentheses, one or more times. So you wind up matching any occurrence of a word character, followed immediately by one or more of the same word character again.
(Note that I gave the regex as a Java string, i.e. with the backslashes already doubled for you)

String stringToMatch = "abccdef";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\w)\\1+");
Matcher m = p.matcher(stringToMatch);
if (m.find())
{
System.out.println("Duplicate character " + m.group(1));
}

Regular Expressions are expensive. You would probably be better off just storing the last character and checking to see if the next one is the same.
Something along the lines of:
String s;
char c1, c2;
c1 = s.charAt(0);
for(int i=1;i<s.length(); i++){
char c2 = s.charAt(i);
// Check if they are equal here
c1=c2;
}