question: public StringBuffer _generatePattern ( StringBuffer result , boolean escapeUnprintable , boolean includeStrings ) { result . append ( '[' ) ; int count = getRangeCount ( ) ; if ( count > 1 && getRangeStart ( 0 ) == MIN_VALUE && getRangeEnd ( count - 1 ) == MAX_VALUE ) { result . append ( '^' ) ; for ( int i = 1 ; i < count ; ++ i ) { int start = getRangeEnd ( i - 1 ) + 1 ; int end = getRangeStart ( i ) - 1 ; _appendToPat ( result , start , escapeUnprintable ) ; if ( start != end ) { if ( ( start + 1 ) != end ) { result . append ( '-' ) ; } _appendToPat ( result , end , escapeUnprintable ) ; } } } else { for ( int i = 0 ; i < count ; ++ i ) { int start = getRangeStart ( i ) ; int end = getRangeEnd ( i ) ; _appendToPat ( result , start , escapeUnprintable ) ; if ( start != end ) { if ( ( start + 1 ) != end ) { result . append ( '-' ) ; } _appendToPat ( result , end , escapeUnprintable ) ; } } } if ( includeStrings && strings . size ( ) > 0 ) { Iterator < String > it = strings . iterator ( ) ; while ( it . hasNext ( ) ) { result . append ( '{' ) ; _appendToPat ( result , it . next ( ) , escapeUnprintable ) ; result . append ( '}' ) ; } } return result . append ( ']' ) ; }
target:  Generate and append a string representation of this set to result. This does not use this.pat, the cleaned up copy of the string passed to applyPattern().