diff --git a/userdiff.c b/userdiff.c
index d556da9751..57529ae63d 100644
--- a/userdiff.c
+++ b/userdiff.c
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@ PATTERNS("html", "^[ \t]*(<[Hh][1-6][ \t].*>.*)$",
 	 "[^<>= \t]+|[^[:space:]]|[\x80-\xff]+"),
 PATTERNS("java",
 	 "!^[ \t]*(catch|do|for|if|instanceof|new|return|switch|throw|while)\n"
-	 "^[ \t]*(([ \t]*[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*){2,}[ \t]*\\([^;]*)$",
+	 "^[ \t]*(([A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*[ \t]+)+[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*[ \t]*\\([^;]*)$",
+	 /* -- */
 	 "[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*"
 	 "|[-+0-9.e]+[fFlL]?|0[xXbB]?[0-9a-fA-F]+[lL]?"
 	 "|[-+*/<>%&^|=!]="
@@ -25,7 +26,7 @@ PATTERNS("objc",
 	 /* Objective-C methods */
 	 "^[ \t]*([-+][ \t]*\\([ \t]*[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9* \t]*\\)[ \t]*[A-Za-z_].*)$\n"
 	 /* C functions */
-	 "^[ \t]*(([ \t]*[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*){2,}[ \t]*\\([^;]*)$\n"
+	 "^[ \t]*(([A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*[ \t]+)+[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z_0-9]*[ \t]*\\([^;]*)$\n"
 	 /* Objective-C class/protocol definitions */
 	 "^(@(implementation|interface|protocol)[ \t].*)$",
 	 /* -- */