Ensure Password Rules for JPasswordField input

Java's standard regular expression classes like Pattern and Matcher only support CharSequence which includes String and StringBuffer but not char[]. And, for security reasons, it is important to never convert a password into a String. It is advisable to keep the password in a char array. So, how do you enforce password rules on a char array. The below code is a sample of how you will need to implement password rules:

      public static boolean isPasswordPatternValid(char[] password) {  
           if (password == null || password.length < 8) {  
                return false;  
           }  
           boolean hasDigit = false;  
           boolean hasLower = false;  
           boolean hasUpper = false;  
           boolean hasSpecial = false;  
           char[] specialChars = new char[] {'~','@','#','$','%','^','&','*','(',')'};  
           for (int i = 0; i < password.length; i++) {  
                if (!hasDigit && Character.isDigit(password[i])) {  
                     hasDigit = true;  
                     continue;  
                }  
                if (!hasLower && Character.isLowerCase(password[i])) {  
                     hasLower = true;  
                     continue;  
                }  
                if (!hasUpper && Character.isUpperCase(password[i])) {  
                     hasUpper = true;  
                     continue;  
                }  
                if (!hasSpecial) {  
                     for (int j = 0; j < specialChars.length; j++) {  
                          if (password[i] == specialChars[j]) {  
                               hasSpecial = true;  
                               break;  
                          }  
                     }  
                }  
           }  
           return true;  
      }