PatternSyntaxException: Illegal Repetition when using regex in Java

I don't know much regex, but I need to match a simple pattern. The following should return true,

Pattern.matches("{\"user_id\" : [0-9]*}", inputLine)

when inputLine is

{"user_id" : 34}

However, I'm getting this exception:

java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Illegal repetition
{"user_id" : 24}
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.closure(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.sequence(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.expr(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Unknown Source)
	at java.util.regex.Pattern.matches(Unknown Source)
	at org.whispercomm.manes.server.http.IntegrationTest.createUser(IntegrationTest.java:173)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:45)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:15)
	at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:42)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.InvokeMethod.evaluate(InvokeMethod.java:20)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:28)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:30)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runLeaf(ParentRunner.java:263)
	at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:68)
	at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.runChild(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:47)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$3.run(ParentRunner.java:231)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$1.schedule(ParentRunner.java:60)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.runChildren(ParentRunner.java:229)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.access$000(ParentRunner.java:50)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner$2.evaluate(ParentRunner.java:222)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:28)
	at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.run(ParentRunner.java:300)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.run(JUnit4TestReference.java:50)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.TestExecution.run(TestExecution.java:38)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:467)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
	at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

What am I doing wrong?

The { and } are special in Java's regex dialect (and most other dialects for that matter): they are the opening and closing tokens for the repetition quantifier {n,m} where n and m are integers. Hence the error message: "Illegal repetition".

You should escape them: "\\{\"user_id\" : [0-9]*\\}".

And since you seem to be trying to parse JSON, I suggest you have a look at Jackson.

There should be plus operator:

user_id : [0-9]+

Double apostrophes only when the string has to contain it.

When the string including curly brackets use:

\{user_id : [0-9]+\}