public static String replaceTildesAndStars(String origText_){
  String cleanText=origText_.replaceAll("~","");
  cleanText=cleanText.replaceAll("\\*","");
  cleanText=cleanText.replaceAll("\\^","");
  return cleanText;
}

public static String replaceTildesAndStars ( String origText_ ) { String cleanText = origText_ . replaceAll ( "~" , "" ) ; cleanText = cleanText . replaceAll ( "\\*" , "" ) ; cleanText = cleanText . replaceAll ( "\\^" , "" ) ; return cleanText ; }
web documents sometimes use tildes and stars either for page section breaks or as bullets for bullet points ; these may cause problems to nlp components < p > this method strips these characters completely
