Split string to brackets, but keep them in Java

Question

I want to split string to brackets ( [] and () ), however I didn't find a good solution. Splitting them to "[" and "(" didn't really help. Basically I want to turn

[str1 str2] (str3 str4) hello world

to

- [str1 str2]
- (str3 str4)
- hello world

EDIT:

I have this regex now: \s+(?![^[][*]]) But I can't really seem to add () (it ignores stuffs inside [] )

EDIT 2:

Marked as duplicate. My question is to keep strings in bracket together, not to split by symbol.

@ΦXocę웃Пepeúpaツ Should be "[[str1 str2] strA]" and "(str3 str4)". But I wouldn't allow that kind of string. — RobiFoxx, Jan 13 '17 at 15:28
Here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9856916/java-string-split-regex — CraigR8806, Jan 13 '17 at 15:36
Have you tried using `indexOf`? Although it is not using regex but it's simple. — Hardik Modha, Jan 13 '17 at 16:22
@CraigR8806 \s+(?![^\[][*\]]) I have this now, works for [], but not for (). @ HardikModha Forgot to mention: There could be more [] or (). — RobiFoxx, Jan 13 '17 at 16:25
`indexOf` has several overloads. The one I believe Hardik was meaning is `haystack.indexOf(needle, startingPos)` where `startingPos` is the numerical index into the string of which to start looking. In essence you could "leap-frog" from `needle` to `needle` calling `indexOf` multiple times. This can get messy and verbose though, but it is a simpler solution. That's a great start for not being very familiar with RegEx! I will try to work you up a solution — CraigR8806, Jan 13 '17 at 16:34
@CraigR8806 Yeah, I know it's messy and not an efficient one. But if [] or () would occur only single time then it's worth trying. — Hardik Modha, Jan 13 '17 at 16:36
Yeah, I know that. But I'd have to look for brackets, and ignore others until it's not closed. — RobiFoxx, Jan 13 '17 at 16:37
Possible duplicate of [How to split a string in Java](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3481828/how-to-split-a-string-in-java) — pringi, Jan 13 '17 at 16:38

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 13 '17 at 16:32

This gets you close (it matches the strings within the square brackets and parentheses, but not the "hello world" at the end:

import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class SplitRegex {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // The search string
        String str = "[str1 str2] (str3 str4) hello world";

        // The Regular expression (Finds [(word)] tokens)
        Pattern pt = Pattern.compile("[\\(\\[]([^\\]\\)]*)[\\]\\)]");

        // Match the string with the pattern
        Matcher m = pt.matcher(str);

        // If results are found
        while (m.find()) {
            System.out.println(m.group(0)); 
        }
    }

}

Thanks! Had to rewrite it a bit, and works perfect! Thanks again! :) — RobiFoxx, Jan 13 '17 at 16:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 13 '17 at 16:50

0

Here is another solution that is a bit more compact:

String str = "[str1 str2] (str3 str4) hello world";
String[] seperatedWords = str.split("\\r+(?:\\(.*\\))|(?:[.*])");

answered Jan 13 '17 at 16:50

CraigR8806

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Split string to brackets, but keep them in Java

2 Answers2