split a string and differentiate the elements in string array

[Krishna Chaitanya Reddy Balam]

Hi all:
I am trying to split a string basing on some HTML tags inside it
if
String s = "I am <b> bold </b>";
I am want that to be converted to string array and I must be able to differentiate which element in the string array was inside the tags.
Is there any way to do it.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Depends what you want to split on. There is a split() method in the String class which does what you want, but it takes a regular expression as its parameter.

If you are not familiar with regular expressions, try here to start you off.

[Krishna Chaitanya Reddy Balam]

but will I be able to differentiate the string int between bold tags in the string array.

[Campbell Ritchie]

You can probably design a regular expression which will match <b> and </b> tags, so you should be able to do that, yes.

[Krishna Chaitanya Reddy Balam]

I think this is the pattern for <b> tags
<b\b[^>]*>(.*?)</b>
and
this is for general HTML tags
<([A-Z][A-Z0-9]*)\b[^>]*>.*?</\1>

but if I write something like
String S4 = "I am <b>bold</b> and I am <i>italic</i> and I am <b><i>bold italic</i></b>"
Pattern htmlTag = Pattern.compile("<([A-Z][A-Z0-9]*)\b[^>]*>.*?</\1>");
int length = s4.length();
Matcher matcher = pbold.matcher(s4);
String result = matcher.group();

I need to get the output to String array

like
String[] sa;
and sa should contain {"I am", "bold", "and I am","italic","and I am","bold italic"}
I konow I can get this but after storing in string array I need to differentiate that sa[1] was between bold tags and sa[3] was in italic tags and sa[5] was in bold italic tags.

Is there any way to do this.
Right now I am parsing the string character by character and doing it bu tI need something more generic as it is difficult to have nested tags with character logic.
Please help

[Campbell Ritchie]

Difficult to be sure just looking at the code, but you appear to be matching everything from a <b> tag to the next </b> tag. I think you want to match only the <b> and </b>.

You might do well to Google for HTML parsers, as well, if you are looking for more than one kind of tag. Why spend hours and hours re-inventing the wheel?

[Krishna Chaitanya Reddy Balam]

I did and nothing helps.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Sorry to hear that.
List of HTML parsers here.

Try myString.split("</.+>") or myString.split("<b>").

import static java.lang.System.*;
 
public class BoldSplitter
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        new BoldSplitter("I am <b>bold</b> and I am <i>italic</i> and I am <b><i>bold italic</i></b>").
            split();
    }//end main
    
    private String text;
    
    public BoldSplitter(String text)
    {
        this.text = text;
    }//end constructor
    
    public void split()
    {
        String[] splits = text.split("<b>");
        for (String s : splits)
        {
            out.println(s);
        }//end for each
    }//end split
}//end class

[Campbell@queeg applications]$ java BoldSplitter
I am
bold</b> and I am <i>italic</i> and I am
<i>bold italic</i></b>
[Campbell@queeg applications]$