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Java Get first character values for a string

I have inputs like
AS23456SDE
MFD324FR
I need to get First Character values like
AS, MFD
There should no first two or first 3 characters input can be changed. Need to get first characters before a number.
Thank you.
Edit : This is what I have tried.
public static String getPrefix(String serial) {
StringBuilder prefix = new StringBuilder();
for(char c : serial.toCharArray()){
if(Character.isDigit(c)){
break;
}
else{
prefix.append(c);
}
}
return prefix.toString();
}

Here is a nice one line solution. It uses a regex to match the first non numeric characters in the string, and then replaces the input string with this match.
public String getFirstLetters(String input) {
return new String("A" + input).replaceAll("^([^\\d]+)(.*)$", "$1")
.substring(1);
}
System.out.println(getFirstLetters("AS23456SDE"));
System.out.println(getFirstLetters("1AS123"));
Output:
AS
(empty)

A simple solution could be like this:
public static void main (String[]args) {
String str = "MFD324FR";
char[] characters = str.toCharArray();
for(char c : characters){
if(Character.isDigit(c))
break;
else
System.out.print(c);
}
}

Use the following function to get required output
public String getFirstChars(String str){
int zeroAscii = '0'; int nineAscii = '9';
String result = "";
for (int i=0; i< str.lenght(); i++){
int ascii = str.toCharArray()[i];
if(ascii >= zeroAscii && ascii <= nineAscii){
result = result + str.toCharArray()[i];
}else{
return result;
}
}
return str;
}
pass your string as argument

I think this can be done by a simple regex which matches digits and java's string split function. This Regex based approach will be more efficient than the methods using more complicated regexs.
Something as below will work
String inp = "ABC345.";
String beginningChars = inp.split("[\\d]+",2)[0];
System.out.println(beginningChars); // only if you want to print.
The regex I used "[\\d]+" is escaped for java already.
What it does?
It matches one or more digits (d). d matches digits of any language in unicode, (so it matches japanese and arabian numbers as well)
What does String beginningChars = inp.split("[\\d]+",2)[0] do?
It applies this regex and separates the string into string arrays where ever a match is found. The [0] at the end selects the first result from that array, since you wanted the starting chars.
What is the second parameter to .split(regex,int) which I supplied as 2?
This is the Limit parameter. This means that the regex will be applied on the string till 1 match is found. Once 1 match is found the string is not processed anymore.
From the Strings javadoc page:
The limit parameter controls the number of times the pattern is applied and therefore affects the length of the resulting array. If the limit n is greater than zero then the pattern will be applied at most n - 1 times, the array's length will be no greater than n, and the array's last entry will contain all input beyond the last matched delimiter. If n is non-positive then the pattern will be applied as many times as possible and the array can have any length. If n is zero then the pattern will be applied as many times as possible, the array can have any length, and trailing empty strings will be discarded.
This will be efficient if your string is huge.
Possible other regex if you want to split only on english numerals
"[0-9]+"

public static void main(String[] args) {
String testString = "MFD324FR";
int index = 0;
for (Character i : testString.toCharArray()) {
if (Character.isDigit(i))
break;
index++;
}
System.out.println(testString.substring(0, index));
}
this prints the first 'n' characters before it encounters a digit (i.e. integer).

pattern matching using regular expressions replace by digits

my program is to take a big string from the user like aaaabaaaaaba
then the output should be replace aaa by 0 and aba by 1 in the given pattern of
string it should not be take a sequence one into the other every sequence is
individual and like aaaabaaabaaaaba here aaa-aba-aab-aaa-aba are individual and
should not overlap eachother while matching please help me to get this program
example: aaaabaaaaaba input ended output is 0101
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class Pattern1 {
Scanner sc =new Scanner(System.in);
public void m1()
{ String s;
System.out.println("enter a string");
s=sc.nextLine();
assertTrue(s!=null);
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(s);
Matcher m =p.matcher(".(aaa");
Matcher m1 =p.matcher("aba");
while(m.find())
{
s.replaceAll(s, "1");
}
while(m1.find())
{
s.replaceAll(s, "0");
}
System.out.println(s);
}
private boolean assertTrue(boolean b) {
return b;
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Pattern1 p = new Pattern1();
p.m1();
}
}

With regex and find you can search for each successive match and then add a 0 or 1 depending on the characters to the output.
String test = "aaaabaaaaabaaaa";
Pattern compile = Pattern.compile("(?<triplet>(aaa)|(aba))");
Matcher matcher = compile.matcher(test);
StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
int start = 0;
while (matcher.find(start)) {
String triplet = matcher.group("triplet");
switch (triplet) {
case "aaa":
out.append("0");
break;
case "aba":
out.append("1");
break;
}
start = matcher.end();
}
System.out.println(out.toString());
If you have "aaaaaba" (one a too much in the first triplet) as input, it will ignore the last "a" and output "01". So any invalid characters between valid triplets will be ignored.
If you want to go through the string blocks of 3 you can use a for-loop and the substring() function like this:
String test = "aaaabaaaaabaaaa";
StringBuilder out = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < test.length() - 2; i += 3) {
String triplet = test.substring(i, i + 3);
switch (triplet) {
case "aaa":
out.append("0");
break;
case "aba":
out.append("1");
break;
}
}
System.out.println(out.toString());
In this case, if a triplet is invalid, it will just be ignored and neither a "0" nor a "1" will be added to the output. If you want to do something in this case, just add a default clause to the switch statement.

Here's what I understand from your question:
The user string will be some sequence of the tokens "aaa" and "aba"
There will be no other combinations of 'a' and 'b'. For example, you will not get "aaabaa" as an input string as "baa" is invalid..
For each consecutive 3 character string, replace "aaa" with 0 and "aba" with 1.
I'm guessing that this is a homework assignment designed to teach you about the dangers of catastrophic backtracking and how to carefully use quantifiers.
My suggestion would be to do this in two parts:
Identify and replace each 3-letter segment with a single character.
Replace those characters with the appropriate value. ('1' or '0')
For example, first construct a pattern like a([ab])a to capture the character ('a' or 'b') between two 'a's. Then, use the Matcher class' replaceAll method to replace each match with the captured character. So, for input aaaabaaaaaba' you getabab` as a result. Finally, replace all 'a' with '0' and all 'b' with '1'.
In Java:
// Create the matcher to identify triplets in the form "aaa" or "aba"
Matcher tripletMatcher = Pattern.compile("a([ab])a").matcher(inputString);
// Replace each triplet with the middle letter, then replace 'a' and 'b' properly.
String result = tripletMatcher.replaceAll("$1").replace('a', '0').replace('b', '1');
There's better ways of doing this, of course, but this should work. I've left the code intentionally dense and hard to read quickly. So, if this is a homework assignment, make sure you understand it fully and then rewrite it yourself.
Also, keep in mind that this will not work if the input string that isn't a sequence of "aaa" and "aba". Any other combination, such as "baa" or "abb", will cause errors. For example, ababaa, aababa, and aaabab will all result in unexpected and potentially incorrect results.

Simplify & condense multiple editorial operations on an array. Java

I have some raw output that I want to clean up and make presentable but right now I go about it in a very ugly and cumbersome way, I wonder if anyone might know a clean and elegant way in which to perform the same operation.
int size = charOutput.size();
for (int i = size - 1; i >= 1; i--)
{
if(charOutput.get(i).compareTo(charOutput.get(i - 1)) == 0)
{
charOutput.remove(i);
}
}
for(int x = 0; x < charOutput.size(); x++)
{
if(charOutput.get(x) == '?')
{
charOutput.remove(x);
}
}
String firstOne = Arrays.toString(charOutput.toArray());
String secondOne = firstOne.replaceAll(",","");
String thirdOne = secondOne.substring(1, secondOne.length() - 1);
String output = thirdOne.replaceAll(" ","");
return output;

ZouZou has the right code for fixing the final few calls in your code. I have some suggestions for the for loops. I hope I got them right...
These work after you get the String represented by charOutput, using a method such as the one suggested by ZouZou.
Your first block appears to remove all repeated letters. You can use a regular expression for that:
Pattern removeRepeats = Pattern.compile("(.)\\1{1,}");
// "(.)" creates a group that matches any character and puts it into a group
// "\\1" gets converted to "\1" which is a reference to the first group, i.e. the character that "(.)" matched
// "{1,}" means "one or more"
// So the overall effect is "one or more of a single character"
To use:
removeRepeats.matcher(s).replaceAll("$1");
// This creates a Matcher that matches the regex represented by removeRepeats to the contents of s, and replaces the parts of s that match the regex represented by removeRepeats with "$1", which is a reference to the first group captured (i.e. "(.)", which is the first character matched"
To remove the question mark, just do
Pattern removeQuestionMarks = Pattern.compile("\\?");
// Because "?" is a special symbol in regex, you have to escape it with a backslash
// But since backslashes are also a special symbol, you have to escape the backslash too.
And then to use, do the same thing as was done above except with replaceAll("");
And you're done!
If you really wanted to, you can combine a lot of regex into two super-regex expressions (and one normal regex expression):
Pattern p0 = Pattern.compile("(\\[|\\]|\\,| )"); // removes brackets, commas, and spaces
Pattern p1 = Pattern.compile("(.)\\1{1,}"); // Removes duplicate characters
Pattern p2 = Pattern.compile("\\?");
String removeArrayCharacters = p0.matcher(charOutput.toString()).replaceAll("");
String removeDuplicates = p1.matcher(removeArrayCharacters).replaceAll("$1");
return p2.matcher(removeDuplicates).replaceAll("");

Use a StringBuilder and append each character you want, at the end just return myBuilder.toString();
Instead of this:
String firstOne = Arrays.toString(charOutput.toArray());
String secondOne = firstOne.replaceAll(",","");
String thirdOne = secondOne.substring(1, secondOne.length() - 1);
String output = thirdOne.replaceAll(" ","");
return output;
Simply do:
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for(Character c : charOutput){
sb.append(c);
}
return sb.toString();
Note that you are doing a lot of unnecessary work (by iterating through the list and removing some elements). What you can actually do is just iterate one time and then if the condition fullfits your requirements (the two adjacent characters are not the same and no question mark) then append it to the StringBuilder directly.
This task could also be a job for a regular expression.

If you don't want to use Regex try this version to remove consecutive characters and '?':
int size = charOutput.size();
if (size == 1) return Character.toString((Character)charOutput.get(0));
else if (size == 0) return null;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < size - 1; i++) {
Character temp = (Character)charOutput.get(i);
if (!temp.equals(charOutput.get(i+1)) && !temp.equals('?'))
sb.append(temp);
}
//for the last element
if (!charOutput.get(size-1).equals(charOutput.get(size-2))
&& !charOutput.get(size-1).equals('?'))
sb.append(charOutput.get(size-1));
return sb.toString();

Removing duplicate same characters in a row

I am trying to create a method which will either remove all duplicates from a string or only keep the same 2 characters in a row based on a parameter.
For example:
helllllllo -> helo
or
helllllllo -> hello - This keeps double letters
Currently I remove duplicates by doing:
private String removeDuplicates(String word) {
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
char letter = word.charAt(i);
if (buffer.length() == 0 && letter != buffer.charAt(buffer.length() - 1)) {
buffer.append(letter);
}
}
return buffer.toString();
}
If I want to keep double letters I was thinking of having a method like private String removeDuplicates(String word, boolean doubleLetter)
When doubleLetter is true it will return hello not helo
I'm not sure of the most efficient way to do this without duplicating a lot of code.

why not just use a regex?
public class RemoveDuplicates {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(new RemoveDuplicates().result("hellllo", false)); //helo
System.out.println(new RemoveDuplicates().result("hellllo", true)); //hello
}
public String result(String input, boolean doubleLetter){
String pattern = null;
if(doubleLetter) pattern = "(.)(?=\\1{2})";
else pattern = "(.)(?=\\1)";
return input.replaceAll(pattern, "");
}
}
(.) --> matches any character and puts in group 1.
?= --> this is called a positive lookahead.
?=\\1 --> positive lookahead for the first group
So overall, this regex looks for any character that is followed (positive lookahead) by itself. For example aa or bb, etc. It is important to note that only the first character is part of the match actually, so in the word 'hello', only the first l is matched (the part (?=\1) is NOT PART of the match). So the first l is replaced by an empty String and we are left with helo, which does not match the regex
The second pattern is the same thing, but this time we look ahead for TWO occurrences of the first group, for example helllo. On the other hand 'hello' will not be matched.
Look here for a lot more: Regex
P.S. Fill free to accept the answer if it helped.

try
String s = "helllllllo";
System.out.println(s.replaceAll("(\\w)\\1+", "$1"));
output
helo

Taking this previous SO example as a starting point, I came up with this:
String str1= "Heelllllllllllooooooooooo";
String removedRepeated = str1.replaceAll("(\\w)\\1+", "$1");
System.out.println(removedRepeated);
String keepDouble = str1.replaceAll("(\\w)\\1{2,}", "$1");
System.out.println(keepDouble);
It yields:
Helo
Heelo
What it does:
(\\w)\\1+ will match any letter and place it in a regex capture group. This group is later accessed through the \\1+. Meaning that it will match one or more repetitions of the previous letter.
(\\w)\\1{2,} is the same as above the only difference being that it looks after only characters which are repeated more than 2 times. This leaves the double characters untouched.
EDIT:
Re-read the question and it seems that you want to replace multiple characters by doubles. To do that, simply use this line:
String keepDouble = str1.replaceAll("(\\w)\\1+", "$1$1");

Try this, this will be most efficient way[Edited after comment]:
public static String removeDuplicates(String str) {
int checker = 0;
StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();
for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); ++i) {
int val = str.charAt(i) - 'a';
if ((checker & (1 << val)) == 0)
buffer.append(str.charAt(i));
checker |= (1 << val);
}
return buffer.toString();
}
I am using bits to identify uniqueness.
EDIT:
Whole logic is that if a character has been parsed then its corrresponding bit is set and next time when that character comes up then it will not be added in String Buffer the corresponding bit is already set.

Splitting input string for a calculator

I'm trying to split the input given by the user for my calculator.
For example,
if the user inputs "23+45*(1+1)" I want to this to be split into [23,+,45,*,(,1,+,1,)].

What your looking for is called a lexer. A lexer splits up input into chunks (called tokens) that you can read.
Fortunately, your lexer is pretty simple and can be written by hand. For more complicated lexers, you can use flex (as in "The Fast Lexical Analyzer"--not Adobe Flex), or (since you're using Java) ANTLR (note, ANTLR is much more than just a lexer).
Simply come up with a list of regular expressions, one for each token to match (note that since your input is so simple, you can probably do away with this list and merge them all into one single regex. However, for more advanced lexers, it helps to do one regex for each token) e.g.
\d+
\+
-
*
/
\(
\)
Then start a loop: while there are more characters to be parsed, go through each of your regular expressions and attempt to match them against the beginning of the string. If they match, add the first matched group to your list of input. Otherwise, continue matching (if none of them match, tell the user they have a syntax error).
Pseudocode:
List<String>input = new LinkedList<String>();
while(userInputString.length()>0){
for (final Pattern p : myRegexes){
final Matcher m = p.matcher(userInputString);
if(m.find()) {
input.add(m.group());
//Remove the token we found from the user's input string so that we
//can match the rest of the string against our regular expressions.
userInputString=userInputString.substring(m.group().length());
break;
}
}
}
Implementation notes:
You may want to prepend the ^ character to all of your regular expressions. This makes sure you anchor your matches against the beginning of the string. My pseudocode assumes you have done this.

I think using stacks to split the operand and operator and evaluate the expression would be more appropriate. In the calculator we generally use Infix notation to define the arithmetic expression.
Operand1 op Operand2
Check the Shunting-yard algorithm used in many such cases to parse the mathematical expression. This is also a good read.

This might be a little sloppy, because I am learning still, but it does split them into strings.
public class TestClass {
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);
ArrayList<String> separatedInput = new ArrayList<String>();
String input = "";
System.out.print("Values: ");
input = sc.next();
if (input.length() != 0)
{
boolean numberValue = true;
String numbers = "";
for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++)
{
char ch = input.charAt(i);
String value = input.substring(i, i+1);
if (Character.isDigit(ch))
{ numberValue = true; numbers = numbers + value; }
if (!numberValue)
{ separatedInput.add(numbers); separatedInput.add(value); numbers = ""; }
numberValue = false;
if (i == input.length() - 1)
{
if (Character.isDigit(ch))
{ separatedInput.add(numbers); }
}
}
}
System.out.println(separatedInput);
}
}