Splitting a string in java where the delimiter is a word

Question

I hava a string(A list of author names for a book) which is of the following format:

author_name1, author_name2, author_name3 and author_name4

How can I parse the string so that I get the list of author names as an array of String. (The delimiters in this case are , and the word and. I'm not sure how I can split the string based on these delimiters (since the delimiter here is a word and not a single character).

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5993779/java-use-split-with-multiple-delimiters — rags, Jul 01 '13 at 08:35

C4stor · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-01T08:42:26.393

7

You can use myString.split(",|and") it will do what you want :)

edited Jul 01 '13 at 08:42

answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:34

C4stor

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score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:34

7

You should use regular expressions:

"someString".split("(,|and)")

answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:34

michael nesterenko

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I don't think you need the parentheses, do you ? – C4stor Jul 01 '13 at 08:36
@C4stor, huh, actually it does not matter here. I am used to use parentheses. – michael nesterenko Jul 01 '13 at 08:38
Parentheses doesn't change what the code does, but simpler code is usually preferred for readability (even if there's only a slight difference in this case). – Bernhard Barker Jul 01 '13 at 08:59

Bernhard Barker · Answer 3 · 2013-07-01T08:47:46.753

2

Try:

yourString.split("\\s*(,|and)\\s*")

\\s* means zero or more whitespace characters (so the surrounding spaces aren't included in your split).

(,|and) means , or and.

Test (Arrays.toString prints the array in the form - [element1, element2, ..., elementN]).

Java regex reference.

edited Jul 01 '13 at 08:47

answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:36

Bernhard Barker

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:54

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I think you need to include the regex OR operator:

String[]tokens = someString.split(",|and");

answered Jul 01 '13 at 08:54

Vijay

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Splitting a string in java where the delimiter is a word

4 Answers4