split the sentence using a delimiter as a string

Question

I am trying to split a sentence using a string as a delimiter.

String sentence = "Java and Python are programming language. Unix and Windows are operating systems."
StringTokenizer tokens = new StringTokenizer(sentence, "and");

expected output is

Java
Python are programming language. Unix
Windows are operating systems.

But split occurs for each and every characters mentioned as a delimiter. Is there any way to use the string directly to split the sentence? also is there any way to use multiple strings as a delimiter?

Why don't you use Regex? – Debanik Dawn Aug 19 '17 at 16:35 — Debanik Dawn, Aug 19 '17 at 16:35

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '17 at 16:39

The documentation for StringTokenizer says that:

Constructs a string tokenizer for the specified string. The characters in the delim argument are the delimiters for separating tokens. Delimiter characters themselves will not be treated as tokens.

So basically, you can't use multi character delimiters.

An alternative is to use String.split or Scanner, both of which takes a regular expression as a delimiter. This gives you lots more flexibility.

The closest to StringTokenizer would be Scanner. Here is an example usage:

Scanner scanner = new Scanner("Your String to Tokenize");
scanner.useDelimiter("and");
scanner.next(); // "next" is basically string tokeniser's "nextToken"

You can use multiple things as delimiters by separating them with |, e.g.:

"and|or"

As I've said, another way is to use String.split. It returns an array of strings:

String[] result = "Your String to Tokenize".split("and");

Whoever down voted can you kind explain your reason for doing so, so that I can improve my answer? — Sweeper, Aug 19 '17 at 16:43

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 19 '17 at 16:37

That is the correct behavior. If you read the documentation for Stringtokenizer you see that the delimiter argument is basically a list of characters that you want to split the input with. So each character in the string is treated as a separate delimiter.

To split a string using words as a delimiter you should use .split() and a regex as the delimiter. See here for examples.

Lena Kaplan · Answer 3 · 2017-08-19T16:49:45.347

0

String sentence = "Java and Python are programming language. Unix and Windows are operating systems.";

String removedAnd = sentence.replaceAll("^and$", "");

 System.out.println(removedAnd);
//Java  Python are programming language. Unix  Windows are operating systems.

edited Aug 19 '17 at 16:49

answered Aug 19 '17 at 16:38

Lena Kaplan

756
4
13

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 19 '17 at 16:45

String s = "Java and Python are programming language. Unix and Windows are operating systems.";
String tmp = s.replace("and", "\n");
System.out.println(tmp)

or you can use this code

String s = "Java and Python are programming language. Unix and Windows are operating systems.";
s = s.replace("and", "\n");
System.out.println(s);

if you don't want to create a new literal

And the output is:

Java 
 Python are programming language. Unix 
 Windows are operating systems.

Debanik Dawn · Answer 5 · 2017-08-19T16:53:33.080

-1

Try this, this works just how you want it.

String sentence = "Java and Python are programming language. Unix and Windows are operating systems.";
String[] s = sentence.split("[\\]*sand[\\s]*");
for(int i=0;i<s.length;i++)
    System.out.println(s[i]);

Hope this helps.

edited Aug 19 '17 at 16:53

answered Aug 19 '17 at 16:38

Debanik Dawn

797
5
28

why the negative vote? I tested it. It works **JUST** how you want it. – Debanik Dawn Aug 19 '17 at 16:40
If the sentence being parsed contained the word "brandy", you regex would split that into "br" and "y". (Note: I did not down vote you) – StvnBrkdll Aug 19 '17 at 16:44
also: "also is there any way to use multiple strings as a delimiter?" you didnt address this. – StvnBrkdll Aug 19 '17 at 16:46
Okay. You're right. Edited. Check it out. – Debanik Dawn Aug 19 '17 at 16:47
I just addressed one question. Besides, you shouldn't ask more than one question in one post in SO, anyway. – Debanik Dawn Aug 19 '17 at 16:48
what if "and" is at the beginning of the sentence? at the end? embedded in a string like "brandy"? Has more than one adjacent whitespace character? – StvnBrkdll Aug 19 '17 at 16:48
@mangotang I'm sure this would do the trick. See my edit. – Debanik Dawn Aug 19 '17 at 16:54

split the sentence using a delimiter as a string

5 Answers5