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Is it possible to replaceall on a string using wildcards? For example 

string adder;
adder = '[Test | 123 ! xyz]';
string replaced;
replaced = adder.replaceall('|%!','');

System.AssertEquals(replaced,'Test xyz');

Here I am using % as wildcard but it is not working.

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The documentation for the replaceAll() method says that it accepts a Regular Expression as the first argument. If you wanted to get rid of everything between | and ! inclusive you can use adder.replaceAll('(\\|.*!)','');.

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  • What I want to do is something like this: [Term: 1 | Vol: 1| Result:1][Term:2|Vol:2|Result:2] and if i want to grab all the terms do ReplaceAll('| Vol: % ]',']') so the result is [Term:1][Term:2] – AverageJoeVBA Jun 23 '17 at 18:37
  • @AverageJoeVBA As stated in the answer (implicitly), you need to "escape" |, which normally means "OR", and you also need to escape the "\" that you use to escape the |, because that has special meaning in Apex Code (also an escape), so you have to write \\| to match a literal | character. – sfdcfox Jun 23 '17 at 18:43
  • Awesome Jeff thanks for the updated answer. Worked to perfection, saved me some rework of splitting out the build of a string throughout a controller. – AverageJoeVBA Jun 23 '17 at 18:44
  • I edited my comment once I re-read the question. The link I posted for Regular Expressions is a good place to get started, but each regex is going to be unique to the situation. In the example you just gave you would use replaceAll('(\\s?\\|[^\\]]*)','') – Jeff Bennett Jun 23 '17 at 18:45
  • Haha @AverageJoeVBA sorry I got distracted trying to build a new RegEx for you. Glad I could help. Leaving the new RegEx up though in case anyone else wants it. – Jeff Bennett Jun 23 '17 at 18:46

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