Java string inside string to string

Question

Hello,
I have this string: "\"Blah \'Blah\' Blah\"". There is another string inside it. How do I convert that into: Blah 'Blah' Blah? (you see, unescaping the string.) This is because I get a SQL Where query:

WHERE blah="Blah \'Blah\' Blah"

When I parse this, I get the string above (still inside quotes and escaped.) How would I extract that, un-escaping the string? Or is ther some much easier way to do this? Thanks,
Isaac

Answer 1

"\"Blah \'Blah\' Blah\"".replaceAll("\"", "")

Answer 2

Put the string in a property file, Java supports XML property files and the quote character does not need to be escaped in XML.

Use loadFromXML(InputStream in) method of the Properties class.

You can then use the MessageFormat class to interpolate values into the String if needed.

Answer 3

This should be about right. This assumes that if it starts with a quote, it ends with a quote.

if (val.startsWith("\"") || val.startsWith("\'")) 
   val = val.substring(1, val.length-2);

You may wish to add val = val.trim(); as well.

Answer 4

DO NOT DO THIS.

Follow the proper steps for parametrization of a query on your Database/Platform, and you won't have to escape anything. You also will protect yourself from injection vulnerabilities.