Java scriptlet to remove duplicate in string separated by | (delimiter)

Question

I have a String that looks like "(doc1| doc1| provid| geestt| stable)". It represents an array and I want to remove any duplicates from it so that doc1 appears only once. How can I do this?

In your title you mention that your array is seperated by "|" - do you have a String or an array? Because an array doe snot have a seperation sign — LionC, Aug 14 '14 at 10:24
It's a string and the results are separated by a delimiter, i had found something like this below but it's not working, i tried to change but it doesnt work` var uniqueArray = duplicatesArray.filter(function(elem, pos) { return duplicatesArray.indexOf(elem) == pos; }); ` — user3772927, Aug 14 '14 at 10:28
possible duplicate of [How to get an array of unique values from an array containing duplicates in JavaScript?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13486479/how-to-get-an-array-of-unique-values-from-an-array-containing-duplicates-in-java) — Michael Sanchez, Aug 14 '14 at 10:31
It's not a duplicate, as the above link asks for a Java solution, not Javascript. I'd rather look at `String.split()` [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/String.html#split(java.lang.String] and `java.util.Set` [http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Set.html] — david a., Aug 14 '14 at 11:04

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 14 '14 at 11:12

    String s = "(doc1|doc1|provid|geestt|provid|stable)";
    s = s.replaceAll("\\b(\\w+)\\|(?=.*\\b\\1\\b)", "");
    System.out.println(s);
    // (doc1|geestt|provid|stable)

This uses \\w for word char; probably you need [^|)] that is: not one of the separator chars. The 0-char wide \\b is for detecting word boundaries, that fits.

This pattern uses a look-ahead (?= ... ) containing \\1 the 1^st matched () group: the word.

P.S. Set<String> seems to be a more appropiate data structure.

Java scriptlet to remove duplicate in string separated by | (delimiter)

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