scala split ignore last values when empty

Question

scala> val st1 = "|||||||000001|09/01/2014|V|174500,00|22||BD |2540|LEC|1000|BEB|
       01|53||AE|111 ||49|94,22|6||||||||2|2|App|80|2|||"
scala> st1.split('|').length
resXX: Int = 39

scala> val st2 = "|||||||000001|09/01/2014|V|174500,00|22||BD |2540|LEC|1000|BEB|
       01|53||AE|111 ||49|94,22|6||||||||2|2|App|80|2| | |"
scala> st2.split('|').length
resXX: Int = 41

that is the last empty fields are ignored by the split. is there any solution other that replacing all "||" by "| |"

the expected output is Int = 41.

indeed in the real file I may have lines such as:

"|||||||000001|09/01/2014|V|174500,00|22||BD |2540|LEC|1000|BEB|
       01|53||AE|111 ||49|94,22|6||||||||2|2|App|80|2|||150"

that is a 42nd column comprising a number. (In this case the result is Int = 42)

Every line has the same number of |, but depending on the content of the column, the split('|').length returns a different result! (31, 40, ...,42).

I can understand the lack of the column after the last separator, but not the lack of the previous ones.

Can you please be more accurate? What is the desired output? — Nir Hedvat, Jun 12 '19 at 14:31
do you only to ignore the empty ones at the end or at the entire string? — Dionysis Nt., Jun 12 '19 at 14:32
Possible duplicate of [Java String split removed empty values](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14602062/java-string-split-removed-empty-values) — Cyrille Corpet, Jun 12 '19 at 14:54

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 12 '19 at 14:43

4

This issue comes from Java (since that's where String#split is defined). As you can see here, in the default case (which is limit=0), the trailing empty strings are discarded.

To make it work as you expect, you can use str.split('|', -1).

answered Jun 12 '19 at 14:43

Cyrille Corpet

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ok but in this case the `'|'` fails. one must use `str.split("""\|""", -1)`. – tschmit007 Jun 12 '19 at 15:05

scala split ignore last values when empty

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