How to split a String sentence into words using split method in Java?

Question

I need to split some sentences into words.

For example:

Upper sentence.
Lower sentence. And some text.

I do it by:

String[] words = text.split("(\\s+|[^.]+$)");

But the output I get is:

Upper, sentence.Lower, sentence., And, some, text.

And it should be like:

Upper, sentence., Lower, sentence., And, some, text.

Notice that I need to preserve all the characters (.,-?! etc.)

What is the purpose of this relatively complex regex, simply splitting on `\\.` should work. — luk2302, Nov 23 '17 at 11:42
Maybe the usual `.split("\\W+")` will do. Unless you need to handle hyphens and apostrophes, and suchlike. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Nov 23 '17 at 11:43
Maybe I didnt specified that clearly in my question but I need to preserve all characters, that is: commas, periods etc. Using \\W+ deletes them all, and I need output like Upper, sentence., Lower, sentence., And, some, text. — candylady, Nov 23 '17 at 12:12
You could save your (and our) time by simply searching for "java split with whitespaces" in Google. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Nov 23 '17 at 12:32
Sorry to take your precious time Wiktor. All the answers in Google states that I should use .split("\\s+"); that doesnt help in my case. — candylady, Nov 23 '17 at 13:21

Chathura Buddhika · Answer 1 · 2017-11-23T12:21:17.837

in regular expressions \W+ match one or more non word characters.

http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/JavaRegularExpressions/article.html

So if you want to get the words in the sentences you can use \W+ as the splitter.

String[] words = text.split("\\W+");

this will give you following output.

Upper
sentence
Lower
sentence
And
some
text

UPDATE : Since you have updated your question, if you want to preserve all characters and split by spaces, use \s+ as the splitter.

String[] words = text.split("\\s+");

I have checked following code block and confirmed that it is working with new lines too.

String text = "Upper sentence.\n" +
            "Lower sentence. And some text.";
    String[] words = text.split("\\s+");
    for (String word : words){
        System.out.println(word);
    }

I also need to preserve any characters, so my output should be like: Upper, sentence., Lower, sentence., And, some, text. — candylady, Nov 23 '17 at 12:19

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 23 '17 at 11:52

1

The expression \\s+ means "1 or more whitespace characters". I think what you need to do is replace this by \\s*, which means "zero or more whitespace characters".

answered Nov 23 '17 at 11:52

Jeroen Steenbeeke

3,884
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score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 04 '17 at 16:13

1

You can split the string into sub strings using the following line of code:

String[] result = speech.split("\\s");

For reference: https://alvinalexander.com/java/edu/pj/pj010006

edited Dec 04 '17 at 16:13

Clijsters

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answered Nov 23 '17 at 11:53

Sreejesh K Nair

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FranAguiar · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-23T12:28:56.797

1

Replace dots, commas, etc... for a white space and split that for whitespace

String text = "hello.world this   is.a sentence.";
String[] list = text.replaceAll("\\.", " " ).split("\\s+");
System.out.println(new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(list)));

Result: [hello, world, this, is, a, sentence]

Edit:

If is only for dots this trick should work...

String text = "hello.world this   is.a sentence.";
String[] list = text.replaceAll("\\.", ". " ).split("\\s+");
System.out.println(new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(list)));

[hello., world, this, is., a, sentence.]

edited Nov 23 '17 at 12:28

answered Nov 23 '17 at 12:08

FranAguiar

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I also need to preserve any characters, so my output should be like: Upper, sentence., Lower, sentence., And, some, text. – candylady Nov 23 '17 at 12:19
1

I update the answer – FranAguiar Nov 23 '17 at 12:30
1

It does work now. Thank You. – candylady Nov 23 '17 at 12:35

Micah · Answer 5 · 2017-11-23T12:33:22.927

1

Simple answer for updated question

    String text = "Upper sentence.\n"+
            "Lower sentence. And some text.";

[just space] one or more OR new lines one or more

    String[] arr1 = text.split("[ ]+|\n+");
    System.out.println(Arrays.toString(arr1));

result:

 [Upper, sentence., Lower, sentence., And, some, text.]

edited Nov 23 '17 at 12:33

answered Nov 23 '17 at 12:19

Micah

92
10

I also need to preserve all characters, so the output must be like Upper1, sentence2., Lower3, sentence4., And5, some6, text7, 10. – candylady Nov 23 '17 at 12:28
I updated answer – Micah Nov 23 '17 at 12:33

How to split a String sentence into words using split method in Java?

5 Answers5