HtmlUtility.java

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package uk.ac.ebi.ep.base.search;

import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import org.springframework.web.util.HtmlUtils;

/**
 * This class is for cleaning up invalid input from the browser (particularly to
 * handle viral ? and \\
 *
 * @author joseph
 */
public class HtmlUtility {

    private HtmlUtility(){
        
    }
    public static String cleanText(String text) {

        String removeBackSlash = text.replaceAll(Pattern.quote("\\"), "");

        String escapeText = HtmlUtils.htmlEscape(removeBackSlash);

        //this method is mainly for ? and \\ when they are repeatedly submitted by a user resulting to ?????? and \\\\\\
        String cleanText = escapeText.replaceAll("Â", "").replaceAll("â", "").replaceAll("'", "")
                .replaceAll("Ã", "").replaceAll("ã", "").replaceAll("¢", "").replaceAll("£", "");


        return cleanText;
    }
}