Using POSIX Character Classes In Java Regular Expressions With ColdFusion

When I first started to learn regular expressions in ColdFusion, I used things called POSIX Character Classes. These were pre-defined groups of characters that looked like:

• [:digit:]
• [:alnum:]
• [:punct:]

When I started working in Java Regular Expressions, I could no longer use those characters classes. Or rather, I couldn't use them with the same notation - POSIX character classes in Java regular expressions have a different notation:

• \p{Digit}
• \p{Alnum}
• \p{Punct}

I was just looking up some regular expression stuff when I saw these POSIX character classes again. I've never actually used them in Java, so I figured I would take a moment to try them out:

When we run this code, we get the following output:

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

_You can_t just pick and choose which laws to follow_ Sure I_d like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of major league baseball_ but that_s just not the way it works_ _ Hank Hill

_You can't just pick and choose which laws to follow_ Sure I'd like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of major league baseball_ but that's just not the way it works_ _ Hank Hill

The casing of the character class in POSIX is important. \p{Digit} works fine, but \p{DIGIT} will throw an error. All of the POSIX classes can be replaced with shorter, more standard character classes so I don't really see much of a need for these; but, the one I see as having some value is the Puntuation character class - there's just too many of those darn characters to type out!

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