title: Regex subbing out 'section character' in java
body: <p>I'm running a series of regex substitutions (i.e. String.replaceAll calls) to convert all the special characters in a text file to XML parseable special characters. For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>string_out = string_out.replaceAll("&amp;", "&amp;amp;");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've hit a stumbling block replacing the 'section character' that is, this little squiggle: §</p>
  
  <p>For starters, I'm doing my editing in vi, so I can't even paste the character in there, it being not a member of standard or extended ascii. I can't see specifying it by hex code in the regex working either, for the same reason. </p>
  
  <p>How would you specify this character for a regex substitute? Or if you just want to drop in and tell me there's already a function tucked away somewhere to do the character conversion I'm doing by hand, that's cool, too.</p>