Split function not splitting string correctly

Question

I have a string with values separated by a ;

col1;col2;;

The last value is empty. I'm getting the number of columns by splitting the string:

int columns = myString.split(";").length;

However, the above returns 2 instead of 3.

Is this a problem of the split method?

Answer 1

Read the Javadoc :

This method works as if by invoking the two-argument split method with the given expression and a limit argument of zero. Trailing empty strings are therefore not included in the resulting array.

You can use myString.split(";",-1) to get an array with trailing empty strings.