String split for specific element

Question

I need to split the following string only the data between the "CHAR" tabs:

Input:

<MSG><KEY>name.extObject</KEY><PARAM><CHAR>Number</CHAR><CHAR>7015:188188</CHAR></PARAM></MSG>

Expected output: Number 7015:188188

I am looking for something efficient.

Any recommendation ?

Thanks

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:22

1

It is good practice to avoid parsing XML/HTML with regex. Instead you can use proper XML parser? I like to use jsoup so here is example how it can be done with this libraryL:

String data = "<MSG><KEY>name.extObject</KEY><PARAM><CHAR>Number</CHAR><CHAR>7015:188188</CHAR></PARAM></MSG>";

Document doc = Jsoup.parse(data, "", Parser.xmlParser());
String charText = doc.select("CHAR").text();

System.out.println(charText);

Output: Number 7015:188188

edited May 23 '17 at 12:22

Community

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answered Apr 10 '15 at 20:44

Pshemo

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I really like this approach, +1 – Federico Piazza Apr 10 '15 at 21:06

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:43

I think you meant to capture the content between tags than splitting the string.

It's well known that you should NOT use a regex to parse xhtml since you can get w͈̦̝͉̬͔͕͡ͅe̴͏̰̜͖̗̤̙̖̕i̧̩̭̳̱̖̦͠ͅŗ̴̼̺̻͕̀d̶̩̖̦̖̲̣̺̫͘ ̡͇̥̩͓c͕̻̫͉̞͝ͅo̯̗͜͜͝ṇ̠͘t̛̬̮̞̥͕̙̞e̷̸̗̼͟ͅn̡͎̖̜̱͟͢t̨̙̫̻̱̺͈̗͝. Although, if you still want a regex you can use a regex like this:

<CHAR>(.*?)<\/CHAR>

Working demo

And you can have this java code:

String line = "<MSG><KEY>name.extObject</KEY><PARAM><CHAR>Number</CHAR><CHAR>7015:188188</CHAR></PARAM></MSG>";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("<CHAR>(.*?)<\\/CHAR>");
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(line);

String result = "";
while (matcher.find()) {
    result += matcher.group(1) + " ";
}
System.out.println(result); //Prints: Number 7015:188188

Update: as Pshemo pointed in his comment:

/ is not special character in Java regex engine. You don't have to escape it

So, you can use:

Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("<CHAR>(.*?)</CHAR>");

Btw, I really like Pshemo answer, it's a nice approach to solve this without regex and xhtml

`/` is not special character in Java regex engine. You don't have to escape it (it only creates confusion). — Pshemo, Apr 10 '15 at 20:51

Wiktor Stribiżew · Answer 3 · 2015-04-10T20:55:59.843

In case you know the tag value is always some digit, then an optional colon with digits, and it is the only <CHAR> tag that has such a numeric value, you may want to use this regex:

 (?<=<CHAR>)\d+(?::\d+)?(?=<\/CHAR>)

Java string:

 String pattern = "(?<=<CHAR>)\\d+(?::\\d+)?(?=</CHAR>)";

Sample code:

String str = "<MSG><KEY>name.extObject</KEY><PARAM><CHAR>Number</CHAR><CHAR>7015:188188</CHAR></PARAM></MSG>";
Pattern ptrn = Pattern.compile("(?<=<CHAR>)\\d+(?::\\d+)?(?=</CHAR>)");
Matcher matcher = ptrn.matcher(str);
if (matcher.find()) {
   System.out.println(matcher.group(0));
}

Output:

7015:188188

You don't need to escape `/` in Java regex. – Pshemo Apr 10 '15 at 20:49 — Pshemo, Apr 10 '15 at 20:49

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 10 '15 at 20:59

String s = inputString;
String result="";
while(s.indexOf("<CHAR>") != -1)
{
    result += s.substring(s.indexOf("<CHAR>") + "<CHAR>".length(), s.indexOf("</CHAR>")) + " ";
    s = s.substring(s.indexOf("</CHAR>") + "</CHAR>".length());
}

//result is now the desired output

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 11 '15 at 01:47

0

Regex for that is : (.*?)</CHAR>

However, it is better to use an XML parser for that.

answered Apr 11 '15 at 01:47

shepard23

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String split for specific element

5 Answers5