Remove part of string in Java

Question

I want to remove a part of string from one character, that is:

Source string:

manchester united (with nice players)

Target string:

manchester united

How do you know which part to keep and which part to discard? Without knowing that, it is impossible to answer your question? — Raedwald, Jul 09 '13 at 18:26

score 175 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 11 '14 at 10:43

175

There are multiple ways to do it. If you have the string which you want to replace you can use the replace or replaceAll methods of the String class. If you are looking to replace a substring you can get the substring using the substring API.

For example

String str = "manchester united (with nice players)";
System.out.println(str.replace("(with nice players)", ""));
int index = str.indexOf("(");
System.out.println(str.substring(0, index));

To replace content within "()" you can use:

int startIndex = str.indexOf("(");
int endIndex = str.indexOf(")");
String replacement = "I AM JUST A REPLACEMENT";
String toBeReplaced = str.substring(startIndex + 1, endIndex);
System.out.println(str.replace(toBeReplaced, replacement));

edited Dec 11 '14 at 10:43

Community

1
1

answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:35

mprabhat

20,107
7
46
63

some typo. should be `String toBeReplaced = str.substring(startIndex , endIndex + 1);` – Yeung Feb 17 '14 at 07:41
also would be worth to remove the space: System.out.println(str.replace(" (with nice players)", "")); – kiedysktos Feb 22 '16 at 14:51

score 36 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 20 '15 at 15:12

36

String Replace

String s = "manchester united (with nice players)";
s = s.replace(" (with nice players)", "");

Edit:

By Index

s = s.substring(0, s.indexOf("(") - 1);

edited Mar 20 '15 at 15:12

Gerrit Griebel

405
3
10

answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:33

Shawn Janas

2,693
2
14
10

3

don't forget `s = s.replace(...)` – Sergey Kalinichenko Jan 01 '12 at 19:34
It can not be, because what is in parentheses can change. I need to change the string from the character ( – zmki Jan 01 '12 at 19:36
Replace will work but the substring version will not work if the string to remove is in the middle of the larger string. – Ian Apr 14 '21 at 02:12

score 23 · Answer 3 · edited Mar 09 '17 at 07:06

23

Use String.Replace():

http://www.daniweb.com/software-development/java/threads/73139

Example:

String original = "manchester united (with nice players)";
String newString = original.replace(" (with nice players)","");

edited Mar 09 '17 at 07:06

Da2da2

57
2
3
13

answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:31

Matt Cashatt

23,490
28
78
111

I wasn't the downvoter but perhaps because you put Replace in the wrong case? – Mike Kwan Jan 01 '12 at 20:00
1

Upvoted to negate the effect of a drive-by (i.e., unexplained and apparently specious) down vote. – Gayot Fow Jan 02 '12 at 00:35
It's not necessary that the string will be same as the example given. So you cannot use replace. – Confuse Apr 12 '15 at 08:52
There is performance comparison here , String replace method uses regular expression under the hood. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16228992/commons-lang-stringutils-replace-performance-vs-string-replace – Igor Vuković Apr 11 '18 at 12:50

score 12 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 13 '15 at 12:38

12

originalString.replaceFirst("[(].*?[)]", "");

https://ideone.com/jsZhSC
replaceFirst() can be replaced by replaceAll()

answered Jul 13 '15 at 12:38

1111161171159459134

1,216
2
18
28

score 8 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 03 '12 at 19:05

Using StringBuilder, you can replace the following way.

StringBuilder str = new StringBuilder("manchester united (with nice players)");
int startIdx = str.indexOf("(");
int endIdx = str.indexOf(")");
str.replace(++startIdx, endIdx, "");

score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:35

You should use the substring() method of String object.

Here is an example code:

Assumption: I am assuming here that you want to retrieve the string till the first parenthesis

String strTest = "manchester united(with nice players)";
/*Get the substring from the original string, with starting index 0, and ending index as position of th first parenthesis - 1 */
String strSub = strTest.subString(0,strTest.getIndex("(")-1);

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:36

6

I would at first split the original string into an array of String with a token " (" and the String at position 0 of the output array is what you would like to have.

String[] output = originalString.split(" (");

String result = output[0];

answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:36

Nicolas Epaminonda

181
1
3
13

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 14 '17 at 15:09

Using StringUtils from commons lang

A null source string will return null. An empty ("") source string will return the empty string. A null remove string will return the source string. An empty ("") remove string will return the source string.

String str = StringUtils.remove("Test remove", "remove");
System.out.println(str);
//result will be "Test"

Gibolt · Answer 9 · 2019-07-19T21:09:14.297

2

If you just need to remove everything after the "(", try this. Does nothing if no parentheses.

StringUtils.substringBefore(str, "(");

If there may be content after the end parentheses, try this.

String toRemove = StringUtils.substringBetween(str, "(", ")");
String result = StringUtils.remove(str, "(" + toRemove + ")");

To remove end spaces, use str.trim()

Apache StringUtils functions are null-, empty-, and no match- safe

edited Jul 19 '19 at 21:09

answered Jul 19 '19 at 18:45

Gibolt

42,564
15
187
127

Good solution!! – Sumit Shukla Jan 24 '20 at 16:03

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 25 '20 at 01:02

Kotlin Solution

If you are removing a specific string from the end, use removeSuffix (Documentation)

var text = "one(two"
text = text.removeSuffix("(two") // "one"

If the suffix does not exist in the string, it just returns the original

var text = "one(three"
text = text.removeSuffix("(two") // "one(three"

If you want to remove after a character, use

// Each results in "one"

text = text.replaceAfter("(", "").dropLast(1) // You should check char is present before `dropLast`
// or
text = text.removeRange(text.indexOf("("), text.length)
// or
text = text.replaceRange(text.indexOf("("), text.length, "")

You can also check out removePrefix, removeRange, removeSurrounding, and replaceAfterLast which are similar

The Full List is here: (Documentation)

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 27 '17 at 11:45

// Java program to remove a substring from a string
public class RemoveSubString {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String master = "1,2,3,4,5";
        String to_remove="3,";

        String new_string = master.replace(to_remove, "");
        // the above line replaces the t_remove string with blank string in master

        System.out.println(master);
        System.out.println(new_string);

    }
}

slindsey3000 · Answer 12 · 2012-01-03T18:51:40.020

0

You could use replace to fix your string. The following will return everything before a "(" and also strip all leading and trailing whitespace. If the string starts with a "(" it will just leave it as is.

str = "manchester united (with nice players)"
matched = str.match(/.*(?=\()/)
str.replace(matched[0].strip) if matched

edited Jan 03 '12 at 18:51

answered Jan 01 '12 at 19:54

slindsey3000

4,053
5
36
56

This doesn't seem to work in Java. It might be derivative of ECMAscript. Do you have some method to make this code work as is in Java? – 1111161171159459134 Jul 13 '15 at 12:22

Remove part of string in Java

12 Answers12

Kotlin Solution

Linked

Related