I am working on a Java application that processes strings. I need to mask the content of a specific field in these strings. The challenge I’m facing is that this field sometimes contains commas, which interferes with my current masking pattern. Here is what I have so far:

Example Input String:

field=I’m graduated from Comsats Sahiwal,

Output:

field=******,

Current Regex Pattern:

fields*=s*([^,]*)

This works fine for strings where the field does not contain commas. However, for strings where the field itself contains commas, the masking stops at the first comma, resulting in incomplete masking.

Example Problematic Input String:

field=I’m graduated from Comsats, Sahiwal,

Current Output:

field=******, Sahiwal,

To address this, I tried updating my pattern to handle multiple commas, but this change disrupts other fields such as:

Another Input String:

{field=*****, name=*****, id=******} ,{ sid=******, …

Example of Incorrect Output for Other Logs:

{field=*****, id=******} ,{ sid=******, …

Name field also masked in some other string if I add such pattern that cover one than one commas.

My Expectations:

I’m looking for a regex pattern that will correctly mask the entire content of the field, stopping at the first comma that indicates the end of the field. It should handle commas within the field itself without disrupting the masking of other fields.

String with Single Comma in Body:

field=Some text, name=John Doe, id=12345,

Desired Output:

field=******, name=John Doe, id=12345,

String containing comma in field value:

field=Some, text, name=John Doe, id=12345,

Desired Output:

field=******, name=John Doe, id=12345,

Question:

How can I construct a regex pattern in Java that properly masks the entire content of the field, stopping at that comma that indicates the end of the field?