FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
Java™ Platform
Standard Ed. 8

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Linux krzzel-840 3.13.0-57-generic #95-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 19 09:28:15 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
The Summary of regular-expression constructs for class java .util .regex .Pattern is wrong. It says:

Construct Matches
 
Characters
_x_ The character _x_

(While this is true if taken literally, _x_ is meant to be a place-holder). This does not hold when _x_ is a special characters like the inverse solidus \.

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
Visit <URL: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html >

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Any character in the pattern string matches itself except for the following meta-characters: inverse solidus \, parentheses (), brackets [], dot ., question mark ?, asterisk *, and for characters within special inserts as described below.
ACTUAL -
x The character x

ERROR MESSAGES/STACK TRACES THAT OCCUR :
Exception in thread "main" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Dangling meta character '*' near index 0
*
^


REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
class PatternTest
{
public final static void main (String [] args)
{ final String p = "*"; System .exit (Pattern .compile (p) .matcher (p) .matches ()? 0 : 01); }}
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
Copy and edit the documentation page yourself.