Splitting strings

Breaking up a string

Instead of using the old StringTokenizer class, a simple trick is to use the String.split method.

prints

This
is
a
string

The split method returns an array of tokens and takes a string that represents regular expression as argument. In the above example I gave " " (space) as the argument so the string was split on space.

Note

• If the expression does not match any part of the input then the resulting array has just one element, namely this string.
• to split on special characters you need to escape them using the \ character e.g
  Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

  1. String name = "java.sql.Date";
  2. String[] s = name.split("\\.");
  3. System.out.println(Arrays.toString(s));
• There are actually two split methods in the String class. The second one takes a regular expression and an integer representing the limit e.g
  Expand|Select|Wrap|Line Numbers

  1. String name = "java.sql.Date";
  2. String[] s = name.split("\\.", 1);
  3. System.out.println(Arrays.toString(s));
  returns the array with only one element

re: Splitting strings

hi,
Its also important to note that split method will work only from JDK1.5. Those who work with JDK 1.4 (In industry many product,projects still use it) will not be able to make use of it.
Regards,
-- Abdel Olakara

re: Splitting strings

Not really. 1.4 supports the String.split method. You can see the API for 1.4 here.

re: Splitting strings

HOW to get the spaces out of a delimited string ??

here is a usage scenario where split() seems not to work

and the output is

So as we can see - that the last space that shall be displayed as

"8the next token" is not displayed.

As far as this space reading from the string in an Array is concerned StringTokenizer fails even miserably. It will not take any of the spaces(either at the start/end or in between)

Is there any way out of it. Sincere thanks in advance.

re: Splitting strings

It's not really a failure but is the behavior clearly documented in the specs for that method.