Remove String Connectors with Regular Expression

Question

How could I remove connectors: "e", "do", "da", "do", "das", "de", "di", "du". From a sentence without changing the whole name.

Example the name: Daniela de Andrade. I wanted to remove only "from", without removing the "DA"niela de Andra"DE" I’m using the relaceAll function in java.

    String retiraConector = "^\\s e $\\s";

   nome = nome.replaceAll(retiraConector, " ");

Answer 1

You can use the following pattern:

String padrao = "(\\w)(\\s+)(e|do|da|do|das|de|di|du)(\\s+)(\\w)";

This pattern was divided into five groups, these follow the order:

any letter or number + one or more spaces + connector + one or more spaces + any letter or number

Note: the groups are formed through parentheses.

To make the replacement use:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String padrao = "(\\w)(\\s+)(e|do|da|do|das|de|di|du)(\\s+)(\\w)";
    String nome = "Daniela de Andrade";
    System.out.println(nome.replaceAll(padrao, "$1 $5"));
}

The result is as follows:

Daniela Andrade

When you use the replaceAll, the pattern is found in Daniel[a de A]ndrade, and is replaced by groups 1 and 5, which are separated by a blank space, these groups are represented by the to, of Danielto, and the To, of Tothoroughness.

---

Overhaul

To ignore upper and lower case letters, you can use (?i) in its expression, for example:

String padrao = "(?i)(\\w)(\\s+)(e|do|da|do|das|de|di|du)(\\s+)(\\w)";

The way to perform the substitution is the same as indicated above.

Answer 2

Following @Mateus Alexandre’s reply:

You can use the following pattern as well:

String padrao = "\s(e|d(a|e|i|o|u)s?)\s";

This pattern was divided into two groups, these follow the order:

space + connector + space

only by changing:

System.out.println(nome.replaceAll(padrao, "$1 $5"));

for

System.out.println(nome.replaceAll(padrao, " "));