Java: replaceAll doesn't work well with backslash?

Question

I\'m trying to replace the beginning of a string with backslashes to something else. For some weird reason the replaceAll function doesn\'t like backslashes.

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Answer 1

Its doesn't like it because \ is the escape character in C like languages (even as an escape on this forum) Which makes it a poor choice for a file seperator but its a change they introduced in MS-DOS...

The problem you have is that you have escape the \ twice so \\host\path becomes \\\\host\\path in the string but for the regex has to be escaped again :P \\\\\\\\host\\\\path

If you can use a forward slash this is much simpler

String jarPath = "//xyz/abc/wtf/lame/";
jarPath = jarPath.replaceAll("//xyz/abc", "z:");