Splitting String in regex with - as one word

Question

I am trying to split a sentence with 32 chars in each group of regex. The sentence is split after the complete word if 32nd character is a letter in the word. When my input is a sentence which has "-" it splits that word too.

This is the regex I am using

(\b.{1,32}\b\W?)

Input string:

Half Bone-in Spiral int with dark Packd Smithfield Half Bone-in Spiral Ham with Glaze Pack

resulting groups:

Half Bone-in Spiral int with

dark Packd Smithfield Half Bone-

in Spiral Ham with Glaze Pack

In above split "Bone-in" is one word but regex splits it considering separate words. How can I modify my regex to treat "-" as one word? In short, I want the split after Bone-in.

Thank You.

The above regex ignores the last part of the sentence which doesnt have 32 chars — masterfly, Dec 03 '18 at 20:51
Yeah, but when you split with it (in most languages), the last part will still be there. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Dec 03 '18 at 20:52
I am using Pattern in java and that one ignores the last part of the sentence — masterfly, Dec 03 '18 at 21:20
Yes, it is true, in Java, you cannot use that feature. But there are workarounds. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Dec 03 '18 at 21:27
Thanks, I did a similar work around. what will be the change if I had to break the sentence before the word if 32nd character is the letter of a word? — masterfly, Dec 04 '18 at 14:55
The same sample string as above. the resulting groups are same with the regex I posted. It breaks the sentence before the word if the 32nd char is between the word. — masterfly, Dec 04 '18 at 15:02
Try `\b.{32,}?\b(?:-\w+)?(?!\w)\W*` or just `\b.{32,}?(?!\w)(?:-\w+)?\W*`, let me know if it works. — Wiktor Stribiżew, Dec 04 '18 at 15:33
This is what I have which splits between Bone-in. I want to consider Bone-in as single word and split before it. http://refiddle.com/o15u — masterfly, Dec 04 '18 at 18:37
Thank you so much. Can you please make that as an answer so that I can mark accordingly. — masterfly, Dec 09 '18 at 06:04

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 09 '18 at 18:38

You may use

(\b.{1,32}(?![\w-])\W?)

Details

\b - a word boundary
.{1,32} - 1 to 32 chars other than line break chars, as many as possible
(?![\w-]) - the char immediately to the left of the current location cannot be a word (letter, digit or _) or - char
\W? - an optional non-word char.

In Java, use the following method:

public static String[] splitIncludeDelimeter(String regex, String text){
    List<String> list = new LinkedList<>();
    Matcher matcher = Pattern.compile(regex).matcher(text);

    int now, old = 0;
    while(matcher.find()){
        now = matcher.end();
        list.add(text.substring(old, now));
        old = now;
    }

    if(list.size() == 0)
        return new String[]{text};

    //adding rest of a text as last element
    String finalElement = text.substring(old);
    list.add(finalElement);

    return list.toArray(new String[list.size()]);
}

Java example:

String s = "Half Bone-in Spiral int with dark Packd Smithfield Half Bone-in Spiral Ham with Glaze Pack";
String[] res = splitIncludeDelimeter("(\\b.{1,32}(?![\\w-])\\W?)", s);
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(res));
// => [Half Bone-in Spiral int with , dark Packd Smithfield Half , Bone-in Spiral Ham with Glaze , Pack, ]

Splitting String in regex with - as one word

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