import java.util.regex.Pattern; class MalformedRegex { Pattern BACKSLASH_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("<error descr="Illegal/unsupported escape sequence">\\</error>" , Pattern.LITERAL); private static final String ASTERISK = "<error descr="Dangling metacharacter">*</error>"; public void foo() { "bar".matches(".*"); Pattern.compile(<warning descr="Regular expression 'ASTERISK' is malformed: Dangling meta character '*'">ASTERISK</warning>); } }