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Empty branch in alternation

Reports empty branches in a RegExp alternation. An empty branch will only match the empty string, and in most cases that is not what is desired. This inspection will not report a single empty branch at the start or the end of an alternation.

Example:

(alpha||bravo)

After the quick-fix is applied:

(alpha|bravo)

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

RegExpEmptyAlternationBranch
Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | RegExp

New in 2017.2

Availability

By default bundled with

CLion 2024.1, DataGrip 2024.1, DataSpell 2024.1, GoLand 2024.1, IntelliJ IDEA 2024.1, JetBrains Rider 2023.3, PhpStorm 2024.1, PyCharm 2024.1, Qodana for .NET 2023.3, Qodana for Go 2024.1, Qodana for JS 2024.1, Qodana for JVM 2024.1, Qodana for PHP 2024.1, Qodana for Ruby 2024.1, RubyMine 2024.1, WebStorm 2024.1 Writerside 2024.1

Can be installed with plugin

IDEA CORE, 241.SNAPSHOT

Last modified: 18 June 2024