Split a string

[Mark Hughes]

Hey guys,
Could i get a hand from ye splitting a string??
Im nearly there but would like to find out the best way to finsih up.
Anyway i have a string say;

Sting strTest = "testing This is a test";

Now i would like to split the string by white spaces;
I use

String[] arrayTest= null;
arrayTest = strTest.split(" ");

which splits all the white spaces, i would like too just split the first white space.
so ideally i would like to finish with two string variables;

String strResult1 = "testing";
String strResult2 = "This is a test";

By splitting into an array im not sure i can do what i want, Any help please??

Mark

[Mark Hughes]

oh yea the first word and subsequent message after it will change in size, so the fix has to be scalable

[Campbell Ritchie]

Try this, mostly copied from your own posting:-

String strTest = "testing This is a test";
String[] arrayTest = strTest.split(" ");

(You can leave out the = null bit.). . . then

for(int i = 0; i < arrayTest.length; i++)
{
   System.out.printf("arrayTest[%d] = %s%n", i, arrayTest[i]);
}

See what you get. See whether you can find any way of getting your output into two arrays.
Find the System class in the API and the Arrays class as well; you might find methods there for copying arrays into each other.

[Ilja Preuss]

So basically what you want to do is finding the very first whitespace in the string, and then get the substring before that location, as well as the substring behind that location, don't you?

If so, it shouldn't be too hard to translate into code, I'd think...

[Peter Chase]

Not sure that's what's wanted, is it? Would not String.split(String, int) do the trick? The int is the maximum number of times to split.

[Mark Hughes]

Hey Campbell,
Thanks i tried that and it returned;
arrayTest[0] = testing
arrayTest[1] = This
arrayTest[2] = is
arrayTest[3] = a
arrayTest[4] = test

I dont really get the [%d] = %s%n, just escape characters is it?? Ill have to look more in to it as you suggested.

So I tried this and it seems to work,

String strResult1 = strarrayResult[0];
String strResult2 = "";
for (int i = 0; i < strarrayResult.length; i++)
{
    if(strarrayResult[i] != strarrayResult[0])
    {
         strResult2 = strResult2 + strarrayResult[i] + " ";
    }
}

So strResult1 will contain "testing"
And strResult2 will have "this is a test"
Which is what i want, Campbell what do you think, would this be a good solution or is there an easier way?? Thanks



Mark

[Katrina Owen]

Hi Mark,

Peter Chase mentioned the split( String regex, int limit ) method from the String class, which would do what you want with less code.

If you try something like

   String strTest = "testing This is a test";
        String[] arrayTest = strTest.split( " ", 1 ); 

   String strTest = "testing This is a test";
        String[] arrayTest = strTest.split( " ", 2 ); 

   String strTest = "testing This is a test";
        String[] arrayTest = strTest.split( " ", 3 ); 

and print out the results, you will get an idea of what it does.

[Mark Hughes]

Katrina, pater,and all

i see, we are gettin there now ha ha

int indexOfFirstSpace = strTest.indexOf(" ");
String strResult1 = strTest.substring(0, indexOfFirstSpace);
String strResult2 = strTest.substring(indexOfFirstSpace);

Right this gets the job done with far less code, thanks all for your help.

Best!
Mark

[Campbell Ritchie]

Yes, you are getting there. And I think the two-parameter version of String.split() works better, as you have found out. But I think you need to check the String class carefully in the API; I think split(" ", 2) might be what you actually want.

[Campbell Ritchie]

. . . and for the %s %n, look up the preamble to the java.util.Formatter class. Note these formatting sequences only work in Java 5 or 6.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Peter Chase:
Would not String.split(String, int) do the trick?

It would!

Didn't even know that it existed...

[Campbell Ritchie]

Didn't even know that it existed...

Nor did I until now . . .
[ March 09, 2007: Message edited by: Campbell Ritchie ]