Doubt in split().

[Amit Batra]

class AA{
public static void main(String[] args){
 
String str = "aaaaaaaaabb";             
String[] s=str.split("a{3}");
System.out.println(s.length);
 
}
}

The above is a question from whizlab simulator. Can anyone please tell me how the output is coming to be 4?
I thought the split method is supposed to split a string around matches of a regex. here regex is a{3} so doesnt that leave bb to be the two tokens.??

[Barry Gaunt]

The tokens are "", "", "", "bb" as shown below:

""aaa""aaa""aaa"bb"

[ August 13, 2006: Message edited by: Barry Gaunt ]

[Amit Batra]

BUt how can a string of zero length be considered a token when I havent used any kind of greedy quantifier? And going by the explanation. there is a token on the left of the first ""aaa. Then why isnt there also a token just before the BB. like aaa""bb".?
I hate regexing

[Barry Gaunt]

The "bb" is the token. Just before this token there is the separator "aaa".