I need to split a string with regex in Java.
I need to get an array : A, B, 01/01/2016 12:31, D
why my regex doesn't work ? it will output the original string.
String source = "A|B|[01/01/2016 12:31]|D";
String regex = "\\|\\|\\[.*\\]\\|";
String[] array = source.split(regex);
for(String data: array){
System.out.println(data);
}
The regex does not match the input string as it expects two consecutive pipes (at the start of the pattern). To be more precise, \|\|\[.*\]\| matches 2 pipes followed by a [ followed with zero or more characters other than a newline (as many as possible) followed with ] and a |.
You need to use the following regex:
String regex = "[|\\[\\]]+";
See IDEONE demo
This regex will match one or more characters: |, ] or [.
+ because otherwise, we'll get empty elements in the array. Also, it is worth noting that you need to escape [ and ] inside the character class in a Java regex.
Modifying the 2nd line to something as below for the input string format and calling split with -1 should handle all situations when the tokens are empty including the last one
String regex = "((\\|\\[)|(\\]\\|)|(\\|))";
String[] array = source.split(regex, -1);
the above gives following output for 'A|B|[01/01/2016 12:31]|D' in case of empty D as well it prints a zero string.
A
B
01/01/2016 12:31
D
This though will work for input strings of the format A|B|[C]|D, the other regex mentioned on the thread [[|\[\]]]+ will handle square brackets showing anywhere in the input along with | separator as long as there are no zero strings, for example A||[C]|D will result in shifting of tokens.
