Quick reg. expression help

OK so I have a string that looks like this (mime):

Code:

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text/plain; charset=UTF-8

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And I want to get rid of anything after the ";" so that I end up with just

Code:

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text/plain

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Here is my code so far:

Code:

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mimeType = mimeType.replaceAll(";*", "");

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However that code only gets rid of the ";" and nothing else giving me:

Code:

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text/plain charset=UTF-8

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What am I doing wrong? I have this other codes that does work but I still want to know why my reg. expression is not working:

Code:

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temp = mimeType.split(";");
mimeType= temp[0];

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This code above is prob faster than a reg. ex? But I still need to learn reg. expressions! Thanks!

";*" means any repetition of ';' such as ";;;;;;;;".

i'm not very good with regex's as i somehow got through college without properly learning them, but i believe the correct regex would be ";.*" such that you have a semicolon followed by repetition of any character

someone correct me if i'm wrong please

I think you are right...where in the world did I get that from. Ok the rule you gave seems to work. I guess I don't understand the "." part - does that mean "any character" ? Thanks!

And on that note...would just using the mimeType.split(";") and using the index 0 element be faster? I'm guessing it would be...

Not really, or at least by a String of that length the difference would be so small as to be non-existent, regardless of which would be faster.