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

Question

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 = input         


        

Answer 1

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).