How to unescape a Java string literal in Java?

The Problem

The org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava() given here as another answer is really very little help at all.

  • It forgets about \0 for null.
  • It doesn’t handle octal at all.
  • It can’t handle the sorts of escapes admitted by the java.util.regex.Pattern.compile() and everything that uses it, including \a, \e, and especially \cX.
  • It has no support for logical Unicode code points by number, only for UTF-16.
  • This looks like UCS-2 code, not UTF-16 code: they use the depreciated charAt interface instead of the codePoint interface, thus promulgating the delusion that a Java char is guaranteed to hold a Unicode character. It’s not. They only get away with this because no UTF-16 surrogate will wind up looking for anything they’re looking for.

The Solution

I wrote a string unescaper which solves the OP’s question without all the irritations of the Apache code.

/*
 *
 * unescape_perl_string()
 *
 *      Tom Christiansen <[email protected]>
 *      Sun Nov 28 12:55:24 MST 2010
 *
 * It's completely ridiculous that there's no standard
 * unescape_java_string function.  Since I have to do the
 * damn thing myself, I might as well make it halfway useful
 * by supporting things Java was too stupid to consider in
 * strings:
 * 
 *   => "?" items  are additions to Java string escapes
 *                 but normal in Java regexes
 *
 *   => "!" items  are also additions to Java regex escapes
 *   
 * Standard singletons: ?\a ?\e \f \n \r \t
 * 
 *      NB: \b is unsupported as backspace so it can pass-through
 *          to the regex translator untouched; I refuse to make anyone
 *          doublebackslash it as doublebackslashing is a Java idiocy
 *          I desperately wish would die out.  There are plenty of
 *          other ways to write it:
 *
 *              \cH, \12, \012, \x08 \x{8}, \u0008, \U00000008
 *
 * Octal escapes: \0 \0N \0NN \N \NN \NNN
 *    Can range up to !\777 not \377
 *    
 *      TODO: add !\o{NNNNN}
 *          last Unicode is 4177777
 *          maxint is 37777777777
 *
 * Control chars: ?\cX
 *      Means: ord(X) ^ ord('@')
 *
 * Old hex escapes: \xXX
 *      unbraced must be 2 xdigits
 *
 * Perl hex escapes: !\x{XXX} braced may be 1-8 xdigits
 *       NB: proper Unicode never needs more than 6, as highest
 *           valid codepoint is 0x10FFFF, not maxint 0xFFFFFFFF
 *
 * Lame Java escape: \[IDIOT JAVA PREPROCESSOR]uXXXX must be
 *                   exactly 4 xdigits;
 *
 *       I can't write XXXX in this comment where it belongs
 *       because the damned Java Preprocessor can't mind its
 *       own business.  Idiots!
 *
 * Lame Python escape: !\UXXXXXXXX must be exactly 8 xdigits
 * 
 * TODO: Perl translation escapes: \Q \U \L \E \[IDIOT JAVA PREPROCESSOR]u \l
 *       These are not so important to cover if you're passing the
 *       result to Pattern.compile(), since it handles them for you
 *       further downstream.  Hm, what about \[IDIOT JAVA PREPROCESSOR]u?
 *
 */

public final static
String unescape_perl_string(String oldstr) {

    /*
     * In contrast to fixing Java's broken regex charclasses,
     * this one need be no bigger, as unescaping shrinks the string
     * here, where in the other one, it grows it.
     */

    StringBuffer newstr = new StringBuffer(oldstr.length());

    boolean saw_backslash = false;

    for (int i = 0; i < oldstr.length(); i++) {
        int cp = oldstr.codePointAt(i);
        if (oldstr.codePointAt(i) > Character.MAX_VALUE) {
            i++; /****WE HATES UTF-16! WE HATES IT FOREVERSES!!!****/
        }

        if (!saw_backslash) {
            if (cp == '\\') {
                saw_backslash = true;
            } else {
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(cp));
            }
            continue; /* switch */
        }

        if (cp == '\\') {
            saw_backslash = false;
            newstr.append('\\');
            newstr.append('\\');
            continue; /* switch */
        }

        switch (cp) {

            case 'r':  newstr.append('\r');
                       break; /* switch */

            case 'n':  newstr.append('\n');
                       break; /* switch */

            case 'f':  newstr.append('\f');
                       break; /* switch */

            /* PASS a \b THROUGH!! */
            case 'b':  newstr.append("\\b");
                       break; /* switch */

            case 't':  newstr.append('\t');
                       break; /* switch */

            case 'a':  newstr.append('\007');
                       break; /* switch */

            case 'e':  newstr.append('\033');
                       break; /* switch */

            /*
             * A "control" character is what you get when you xor its
             * codepoint with '@'==64.  This only makes sense for ASCII,
             * and may not yield a "control" character after all.
             *
             * Strange but true: "\c{" is ";", "\c}" is "=", etc.
             */
            case 'c':   {
                if (++i == oldstr.length()) { die("trailing \\c"); }
                cp = oldstr.codePointAt(i);
                /*
                 * don't need to grok surrogates, as next line blows them up
                 */
                if (cp > 0x7f) { die("expected ASCII after \\c"); }
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(cp ^ 64));
                break; /* switch */
            }

            case '8':
            case '9': die("illegal octal digit");
                      /* NOTREACHED */

    /*
     * may be 0 to 2 octal digits following this one
     * so back up one for fallthrough to next case;
     * unread this digit and fall through to next case.
     */
            case '1':
            case '2':
            case '3':
            case '4':
            case '5':
            case '6':
            case '7': --i;
                      /* FALLTHROUGH */

            /*
             * Can have 0, 1, or 2 octal digits following a 0
             * this permits larger values than octal 377, up to
             * octal 777.
             */
            case '0': {
                if (i+1 == oldstr.length()) {
                    /* found \0 at end of string */
                    newstr.append(Character.toChars(0));
                    break; /* switch */
                }
                i++;
                int digits = 0;
                int j;
                for (j = 0; j <= 2; j++) {
                    if (i+j == oldstr.length()) {
                        break; /* for */
                    }
                    /* safe because will unread surrogate */
                    int ch = oldstr.charAt(i+j);
                    if (ch < '0' || ch > '7') {
                        break; /* for */
                    }
                    digits++;
                }
                if (digits == 0) {
                    --i;
                    newstr.append('\0');
                    break; /* switch */
                }
                int value = 0;
                try {
                    value = Integer.parseInt(
                                oldstr.substring(i, i+digits), 8);
                } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                    die("invalid octal value for \\0 escape");
                }
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(value));
                i += digits-1;
                break; /* switch */
            } /* end case '0' */

            case 'x':  {
                if (i+2 > oldstr.length()) {
                    die("string too short for \\x escape");
                }
                i++;
                boolean saw_brace = false;
                if (oldstr.charAt(i) == '{') {
                        /* ^^^^^^ ok to ignore surrogates here */
                    i++;
                    saw_brace = true;
                }
                int j;
                for (j = 0; j < 8; j++) {

                    if (!saw_brace && j == 2) {
                        break;  /* for */
                    }

                    /*
                     * ASCII test also catches surrogates
                     */
                    int ch = oldstr.charAt(i+j);
                    if (ch > 127) {
                        die("illegal non-ASCII hex digit in \\x escape");
                    }

                    if (saw_brace && ch == '}') { break; /* for */ }

                    if (! ( (ch >= '0' && ch <= '9')
                                ||
                            (ch >= 'a' && ch <= 'f')
                                ||
                            (ch >= 'A' && ch <= 'F')
                          )
                       )
                    {
                        die(String.format(
                            "illegal hex digit #%d '%c' in \\x", ch, ch));
                    }

                }
                if (j == 0) { die("empty braces in \\x{} escape"); }
                int value = 0;
                try {
                    value = Integer.parseInt(oldstr.substring(i, i+j), 16);
                } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                    die("invalid hex value for \\x escape");
                }
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(value));
                if (saw_brace) { j++; }
                i += j-1;
                break; /* switch */
            }

            case 'u': {
                if (i+4 > oldstr.length()) {
                    die("string too short for \\u escape");
                }
                i++;
                int j;
                for (j = 0; j < 4; j++) {
                    /* this also handles the surrogate issue */
                    if (oldstr.charAt(i+j) > 127) {
                        die("illegal non-ASCII hex digit in \\u escape");
                    }
                }
                int value = 0;
                try {
                    value = Integer.parseInt( oldstr.substring(i, i+j), 16);
                } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                    die("invalid hex value for \\u escape");
                }
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(value));
                i += j-1;
                break; /* switch */
            }

            case 'U': {
                if (i+8 > oldstr.length()) {
                    die("string too short for \\U escape");
                }
                i++;
                int j;
                for (j = 0; j < 8; j++) {
                    /* this also handles the surrogate issue */
                    if (oldstr.charAt(i+j) > 127) {
                        die("illegal non-ASCII hex digit in \\U escape");
                    }
                }
                int value = 0;
                try {
                    value = Integer.parseInt(oldstr.substring(i, i+j), 16);
                } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                    die("invalid hex value for \\U escape");
                }
                newstr.append(Character.toChars(value));
                i += j-1;
                break; /* switch */
            }

            default:   newstr.append('\\');
                       newstr.append(Character.toChars(cp));
           /*
            * say(String.format(
            *       "DEFAULT unrecognized escape %c passed through",
            *       cp));
            */
                       break; /* switch */

        }
        saw_backslash = false;
    }

    /* weird to leave one at the end */
    if (saw_backslash) {
        newstr.append('\\');
    }

    return newstr.toString();
}

/*
 * Return a string "U+XX.XXX.XXXX" etc, where each XX set is the
 * xdigits of the logical Unicode code point. No bloody brain-damaged
 * UTF-16 surrogate crap, just true logical characters.
 */
 public final static
 String uniplus(String s) {
     if (s.length() == 0) {
         return "";
     }
     /* This is just the minimum; sb will grow as needed. */
     StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(2 + 3 * s.length());
     sb.append("U+");
     for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
         sb.append(String.format("%X", s.codePointAt(i)));
         if (s.codePointAt(i) > Character.MAX_VALUE) {
             i++; /****WE HATES UTF-16! WE HATES IT FOREVERSES!!!****/
         }
         if (i+1 < s.length()) {
             sb.append(".");
         }
     }
     return sb.toString();
 }

private static final
void die(String foa) {
    throw new IllegalArgumentException(foa);
}

private static final
void say(String what) {
    System.out.println(what);
}

If it helps others, you’re welcome to it — no strings attached. If you improve it, I’d love for you to mail me your enhancements, but you certainly don’t have to.

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