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Query about the trim() method in Java
I am parsing a site's usernames and other information, and each one has a bunch of spaces after it (but spaces in between the words).
For example: "Bob the Builder " or "Sam the welder ". The numbers of spaces vary from name to name. I figured I'd just use .trim(), since I've used this before.
However, it's giving me trouble. My code looks like this:
for (int i = 0; i < splitSource3.size(); i++) {
splitSource3.set(i, splitSource3.get(i).trim());
}
The result is just the same; no spaces are removed at the end.
Thank you in advance for your excellent answers!
UPDATE:
The full code is a bit more complicated, since there are HTML tags that are parsed out first. It goes exactly like this:
for (String s : splitSource2) {
if (s.length() > "<td class=\"dddefault\">".length() && s.substring(0, "<td class=\"dddefault\">".length()).equals("<td class=\"dddefault\">")) {
splitSource3.add(s.substring("<td class=\"dddefault\">".length()));
}
}
System.out.println("\n");
for (int i = 0; i < splitSource3.size(); i++) {
splitSource3.set(i, splitSource3.get(i).substring(0, splitSource3.get(i).length() - 5));
splitSource3.set(i, splitSource3.get(i).trim());
System.out.println(i + ": " + splitSource3.get(i));
}
}
UPDATE:
Calm down. I never said the fault lay with Java, and I never said it was a bug or broken or anything. I simply said I was having trouble with it and posted my code for you to collaborate on and help solve my issue. Note the phrase "my issue" and not "java's issue". I have actually had the code printing out
System.out.println(i + ": " + splitSource3.get(i) + "*");
in a for each loop afterward.
This is how I knew I had a problem.
By the way, the problem has still not been fixed.
UPDATE:
Sample output (minus single quotes):
'0: Olin D. Kirkland '
'1: Sophomore '
'2: Someplace, Virginia 12345<br />VA SomeCity<br />'
'3: Undergraduate '
EDIT the OP rephrased his question at Query about the trim() method in Java, where the issue was found to be Unicode whitespace characters which are not matched by String.trim().
It just occurred to me that I used to have this sort of issue when I worked on a screen-scraping project. The key is that sometimes the downloaded HTML sources contain non-printable characters which are non-whitespace characters too. These are very difficult to copy-paste to a browser. I assume that this could happened to you.
If my assumption is correct then you've got two choices:
Use a binary reader and figure out what those characters are - and delete them with String.replace(); E.g.:
private static void cutCharacters(String fromHtml) {
String result = fromHtml;
char[] problematicCharacters = {'\000', '\001', '\003'}; //this could be a private static final constant too
for (char ch : problematicCharacters) {
result = result.replace(ch, ""); //I know, it's dirty to modify an input parameter. But it will do as an example
}
return result;
}
If you find some sort of reoccurring pattern in the HTML to be parsed then you can use regexes and substrings to cut the unwanted parts. E.g.:
private String getImportantParts(String fromHtml) {
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(\\w*\\s*)"); //this could be a private static final constant as well.
Matcher m = p.matcher(fromHtml);
StringBuilder buff = new StringBuilder();
while (m.find()) {
buff.append(m.group(1));
}
return buff.toString().trim();
}
Works without a problem for me.
Here your code a bit refactored and (maybe) better readable:
final String openingTag = "<td class=\"dddefault\">";
final String closingTag = "</td>";
List<String> splitSource2 = new ArrayList<String>();
splitSource2.add(openingTag + "Bob the Builder " + closingTag);
splitSource2.add(openingTag + "Sam the welder " + closingTag);
for (String string : splitSource2) {
System.out.println("|" + string + "|");
}
List<String> splitSource3 = new ArrayList<String>();
for (String s : splitSource2) {
if (s.length() > openingTag.length() && s.startsWith(openingTag)) {
String nameWithoutOpeningTag = s.substring(openingTag.length());
splitSource3.add(nameWithoutOpeningTag);
}
}
System.out.println("\n");
for (int i = 0; i < splitSource3.size(); i++) {
String name = splitSource3.get(i);
int closingTagBegin = splitSource3.get(i).length() - closingTag.length();
String nameWithoutClosingTag = name.substring(0, closingTagBegin);
String nameTrimmed = nameWithoutClosingTag.trim();
splitSource3.set(i, nameTrimmed);
System.out.println("|" + splitSource3.get(i) + "|");
}
I know that's not a real answer, but i cannot post comments and this code as a comment wouldn't fit, so I made it an answer, so that Olin Kirkland can check his code.
I try to split a String into tokens.
The token delimiters are not single characters, some delimiters are included into others (example, & and &&), and I need to have the delimiters returned as token.
StringTokenizer is not able to deal with multiple characters delimiters. I presume it's possible with String.split, but fail to guess the magical regular expression that will suits my needs.
Any idea ?
Example:
Token delimiters: "&", "&&", "=", "=>", " "
String to tokenize: a & b&&c=>d
Expected result: an string array containing "a", " ", "&", " ", "b", "&&", "c", "=>", "d"
--- Edit ---
Thanks to all for your help, Dasblinkenlight gives me the solution. Here is the "ready to use" code I wrote with his help:
private static String[] wonderfulTokenizer(String string, String[] delimiters) {
// First, create a regular expression that matches the union of the delimiters
// Be aware that, in case of delimiters containing others (example && and &),
// the longer may be before the shorter (&& should be before &) or the regexpr
// parser will recognize && as two &.
Arrays.sort(delimiters, new Comparator<String>() {
#Override
public int compare(String o1, String o2) {
return -o1.compareTo(o2);
}
});
// Build a string that will contain the regular expression
StringBuilder regexpr = new StringBuilder();
regexpr.append('(');
for (String delim : delimiters) { // For each delimiter
if (regexpr.length() != 1) regexpr.append('|'); // Add union separator if needed
for (int i = 0; i < delim.length(); i++) {
// Add an escape character if the character is a regexp reserved char
regexpr.append('\\');
regexpr.append(delim.charAt(i));
}
}
regexpr.append(')'); // Close the union
Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regexpr.toString());
// Now, search for the tokens
List<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = p.matcher(string);
int pos = 0;
while (m.find()) { // While there's a delimiter in the string
if (pos != m.start()) {
// If there's something between the current and the previous delimiter
// Add it to the tokens list
res.add(string.substring(pos, m.start()));
}
res.add(m.group()); // add the delimiter
pos = m.end(); // Remember end of delimiter
}
if (pos != string.length()) {
// If it remains some characters in the string after last delimiter
// Add this to the token list
res.add(string.substring(pos));
}
// Return the result
return res.toArray(new String[res.size()]);
}
It could be optimize if you have many strings to tokenize by creating the Pattern only one time.
You can use the Pattern and a simple loop to achieve the results that you are looking for:
List<String> res = new ArrayList<String>();
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("([&]{1,2}|=>?| +)");
String s = "s=a&=>b";
Matcher m = p.matcher(s);
int pos = 0;
while (m.find()) {
if (pos != m.start()) {
res.add(s.substring(pos, m.start()));
}
res.add(m.group());
pos = m.end();
}
if (pos != s.length()) {
res.add(s.substring(pos));
}
for (String t : res) {
System.out.println("'"+t+"'");
}
This produces the result below:
's'
'='
'a'
'&'
'=>'
'b'
Split won't do it for you as it removed the delimeter. You probably need to tokenize the string on your own (i.e. a for-loop) or use a framework like
http://www.antlr.org/
Try this:
String test = "a & b&&c=>d=A";
String regEx = "(&[&]?|=[>]?)";
String[] res = test.split(regEx);
for(String s : res){
System.out.println("Token: "+s);
}
I added the '=A' at the end to show that that is also parsed.
As mentioned in another answer, if you need the atypical behaviour of keeping the delimiters in the result, you will probably need to create you parser yourself....but in that case you really have to think about what a "delimiter" is in your code.
I want to split a string with a delimiter white space. but it should handle quoted strings intelligently. E.g. for a string like
"John Smith" Ted Barry
It should return three strings John Smith, Ted and Barry.
After messing around with it, you can use Regex for this. Run the equivalent of "match all" on:
((?<=("))[\w ]*(?=("(\s|$))))|((?<!")\w+(?!"))
A Java Example:
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
public class Test
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String someString = "\"Multiple quote test\" not in quotes \"inside quote\" \"A work in progress\"";
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("((?<=(\"))[\\w ]*(?=(\"(\\s|$))))|((?<!\")\\w+(?!\"))");
Matcher m = p.matcher(someString);
while(m.find()) {
System.out.println("'" + m.group() + "'");
}
}
}
Output:
'Multiple quote test'
'not'
'in'
'quotes'
'inside quote'
'A work in progress'
The regular expression breakdown with the example used above can be viewed here:
http://regex101.com/r/wM6yT9
With all that said, regular expressions should not be the go to solution for everything - I was just having fun. This example has a lot of edge cases such as the handling unicode characters, symbols, etc. You would be better off using a tried and true library for this sort of task. Take a look at the other answers before using this one.
Try this ugly bit of code.
String str = "hello my dear \"John Smith\" where is Ted Barry";
List<String> list = Arrays.asList(str.split("\\s"));
List<String> resultList = new ArrayList<String>();
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
for(String s : list){
if(s.startsWith("\"")) {
builder.append(s.substring(1)).append(" ");
} else {
resultList.add((s.endsWith("\"")
? builder.append(s.substring(0, s.length() - 1))
: builder.append(s)).toString());
builder.delete(0, builder.length());
}
}
System.out.println(resultList);
well, i made a small snipet that does what you want and some more things. since you did not specify more conditions i did not go through the trouble. i know this is a dirty way and you can probably get better results with something that is already made. but for the fun of programming here is the example:
String example = "hello\"John Smith\" Ted Barry lol\"Basi German\"hello";
int wordQuoteStartIndex=0;
int wordQuoteEndIndex=0;
int wordSpaceStartIndex = 0;
int wordSpaceEndIndex = 0;
boolean foundQuote = false;
for(int index=0;index<example.length();index++) {
if(example.charAt(index)=='\"') {
if(foundQuote==true) {
wordQuoteEndIndex=index+1;
//Print the quoted word
System.out.println(example.substring(wordQuoteStartIndex, wordQuoteEndIndex));//here you can remove quotes by changing to (wordQuoteStartIndex+1, wordQuoteEndIndex-1)
foundQuote=false;
if(index+1<example.length()) {
wordSpaceStartIndex = index+1;
}
}else {
wordSpaceEndIndex=index;
if(wordSpaceStartIndex!=wordSpaceEndIndex) {
//print the word in spaces
System.out.println(example.substring(wordSpaceStartIndex, wordSpaceEndIndex));
}
wordQuoteStartIndex=index;
foundQuote = true;
}
}
if(foundQuote==false) {
if(example.charAt(index)==' ') {
wordSpaceEndIndex = index;
if(wordSpaceStartIndex!=wordSpaceEndIndex) {
//print the word in spaces
System.out.println(example.substring(wordSpaceStartIndex, wordSpaceEndIndex));
}
wordSpaceStartIndex = index+1;
}
if(index==example.length()-1) {
if(example.charAt(index)!='\"') {
//print the word in spaces
System.out.println(example.substring(wordSpaceStartIndex, example.length()));
}
}
}
}
this also checks for words that were not separated with a space after or before the quotes, such as the words "hello" before "John Smith" and after "Basi German".
when the string is modified to "John Smith" Ted Barry the output is three strings,
1) "John Smith"
2) Ted
3) Barry
The string in the example is hello"John Smith" Ted Barry lol"Basi German"hello and prints
1)hello
2)"John Smith"
3)Ted
4)Barry
5)lol
6)"Basi German"
7)hello
Hope it helps
This is my own version, clean up from http://pastebin.com/aZngu65y (posted in the comment).
It can take care of Unicode. It will clean up all excessive spaces (even in quote) - this can be good or bad depending on the need. No support for escaped quote.
private static String[] parse(String param) {
String[] output;
param = param.replaceAll("\"", " \" ").trim();
String[] fragments = param.split("\\s+");
int curr = 0;
boolean matched = fragments[curr].matches("[^\"]*");
if (matched) curr++;
for (int i = 1; i < fragments.length; i++) {
if (!matched)
fragments[curr] = fragments[curr] + " " + fragments[i];
if (!fragments[curr].matches("(\"[^\"]*\"|[^\"]*)"))
matched = false;
else {
matched = true;
if (fragments[curr].matches("\"[^\"]*\""))
fragments[curr] = fragments[curr].substring(1, fragments[curr].length() - 1).trim();
if (fragments[curr].length() != 0)
curr++;
if (i + 1 < fragments.length)
fragments[curr] = fragments[i + 1];
}
}
if (matched) {
return Arrays.copyOf(fragments, curr);
}
return null; // Parameter failure (double-quotes do not match up properly).
}
Sample input for comparison:
"sdfskjf" sdfjkhsd "hfrif ehref" "fksdfj sdkfj fkdsjf" sdf sfssd
asjdhj sdf ffhj "fdsf fsdjh"
日本語 中文 "Tiếng Việt" "English"
dsfsd
sdf " s dfs fsd f " sd f fs df fdssf "日本語 中文"
"" "" ""
" sdfsfds " "f fsdf
(2nd line is empty, 3rd line is spaces, last line is malformed).
Please judge with your own expected output, since it may varies, but the baseline is that, the 1st case should return [sdfskjf, sdfjkhsd, hfrif ehref, fksdfj sdkfj fkdsjf, sdf, sfssd].
commons-lang has a StrTokenizer class to do this for you, and there is also java-csv library.
Example with StrTokenizer:
String params = "\"John Smith\" Ted Barry"
// Initialize tokenizer with input string, delimiter character, quote character
StrTokenizer tokenizer = new StrTokenizer(params, ' ', '"');
for (String token : tokenizer.getTokenArray()) {
System.out.println(token);
}
Output:
John Smith
Ted
Barry
Looking for quick, simple way in Java to change this string
" hello there "
to something that looks like this
"hello there"
where I replace all those multiple spaces with a single space, except I also want the one or more spaces at the beginning of string to be gone.
Something like this gets me partly there
String mytext = " hello there ";
mytext = mytext.replaceAll("( )+", " ");
but not quite.
Try this:
String after = before.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ");
See also
String.trim()
Returns a copy of the string, with leading and trailing whitespace omitted.
regular-expressions.info/Repetition
No trim() regex
It's also possible to do this with just one replaceAll, but this is much less readable than the trim() solution. Nonetheless, it's provided here just to show what regex can do:
String[] tests = {
" x ", // [x]
" 1 2 3 ", // [1 2 3]
"", // []
" ", // []
};
for (String test : tests) {
System.out.format("[%s]%n",
test.replaceAll("^ +| +$|( )+", "$1")
);
}
There are 3 alternates:
^_+ : any sequence of spaces at the beginning of the string
Match and replace with $1, which captures the empty string
_+$ : any sequence of spaces at the end of the string
Match and replace with $1, which captures the empty string
(_)+ : any sequence of spaces that matches none of the above, meaning it's in the middle
Match and replace with $1, which captures a single space
See also
regular-expressions.info/Anchors
You just need a:
replaceAll("\\s{2,}", " ").trim();
where you match one or more spaces and replace them with a single space and then trim whitespaces at the beginning and end (you could actually invert by first trimming and then matching to make the regex quicker as someone pointed out).
To test this out quickly try:
System.out.println(new String(" hello there ").trim().replaceAll("\\s{2,}", " "));
and it will return:
"hello there"
Use the Apache commons StringUtils.normalizeSpace(String str) method. See docs here
This worked perfectly for me : sValue = sValue.trim().replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
trim() method removes the leading and trailing spaces and using replaceAll("regex", "string to replace") method with regex "\s+" matches more than one space and will replace it with a single space
myText = myText.trim().replaceAll("\\s+"," ");
The following code will compact any whitespace between words and remove any at the string's beginning and end
String input = "\n\n\n a string with many spaces, \n"+
" a \t tab and a newline\n\n";
String output = input.trim().replaceAll("\\s+", " ");
System.out.println(output);
This will output a string with many spaces, a tab and a newline
Note that any non-printable characters including spaces, tabs and newlines will be compacted or removed
For more information see the respective documentation:
String#trim() method
String#replaceAll(String regex, String replacement) method
For information about Java's regular expression implementation see the documentation of the Pattern class
"[ ]{2,}"
This will match more than one space.
String mytext = " hello there ";
//without trim -> " hello there"
//with trim -> "hello there"
mytext = mytext.trim().replaceAll("[ ]{2,}", " ");
System.out.println(mytext);
OUTPUT:
hello there
To eliminate spaces at the beginning and at the end of the String, use String#trim() method. And then use your mytext.replaceAll("( )+", " ").
You can first use String.trim(), and then apply the regex replace command on the result.
Try this one.
Sample Code
String str = " hello there ";
System.out.println(str.replaceAll("( +)"," ").trim());
OUTPUT
hello there
First it will replace all the spaces with single space. Than we have to supposed to do trim String because Starting of the String and End of the String it will replace the all space with single space if String has spaces at Starting of the String and End of the String So we need to trim them. Than you get your desired String.
String blogName = "how to do in java . com";
String nameWithProperSpacing = blogName.replaceAll("\\\s+", " ");
trim()
Removes only the leading & trailing spaces.
From Java Doc,
"Returns a string whose value is this string, with any leading and trailing whitespace removed."
System.out.println(" D ev Dum my ".trim());
"D ev Dum my"
replace(), replaceAll()
Replaces all the empty strings in the word,
System.out.println(" D ev Dum my ".replace(" ",""));
System.out.println(" D ev Dum my ".replaceAll(" ",""));
System.out.println(" D ev Dum my ".replaceAll("\\s+",""));
Output:
"DevDummy"
"DevDummy"
"DevDummy"
Note: "\s+" is the regular expression similar to the empty space character.
Reference : https://www.codedjava.com/2018/06/replace-all-spaces-in-string-trim.html
In Kotlin it would look like this
val input = "\n\n\n a string with many spaces, \n"
val cleanedInput = input.trim().replace(Regex("(\\s)+"), " ")
A lot of correct answers been provided so far and I see lot of upvotes. However, the mentioned ways will work but not really optimized or not really readable.
I recently came across the solution which every developer will like.
String nameWithProperSpacing = StringUtils.normalizeSpace( stringWithLotOfSpaces );
You are done.
This is readable solution.
You could use lookarounds also.
test.replaceAll("^ +| +$|(?<= ) ", "");
OR
test.replaceAll("^ +| +$| (?= )", "")
<space>(?= ) matches a space character which is followed by another space character. So in consecutive spaces, it would match all the spaces except the last because it isn't followed by a space character. This leaving you a single space for consecutive spaces after the removal operation.
Example:
String[] tests = {
" x ", // [x]
" 1 2 3 ", // [1 2 3]
"", // []
" ", // []
};
for (String test : tests) {
System.out.format("[%s]%n",
test.replaceAll("^ +| +$| (?= )", "")
);
}
See String.replaceAll.
Use the regex "\s" and replace with " ".
Then use String.trim.
String str = " hello world"
reduce spaces first
str = str.trim().replaceAll(" +", " ");
capitalize the first letter and lowercase everything else
str = str.substring(0,1).toUpperCase() +str.substring(1,str.length()).toLowerCase();
you should do it like this
String mytext = " hello there ";
mytext = mytext.replaceAll("( +)", " ");
put + inside round brackets.
String str = " this is string ";
str = str.replaceAll("\\s+", " ").trim();
This worked for me
scan= filter(scan, " [\\s]+", " ");
scan= sac.trim();
where filter is following function and scan is the input string:
public String filter(String scan, String regex, String replace) {
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
Pattern pt = Pattern.compile(regex);
Matcher m = pt.matcher(scan);
while (m.find()) {
m.appendReplacement(sb, replace);
}
m.appendTail(sb);
return sb.toString();
}
The simplest method for removing white space anywhere in the string.
public String removeWhiteSpaces(String returnString){
returnString = returnString.trim().replaceAll("^ +| +$|( )+", " ");
return returnString;
}
check this...
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = "A B C D E F G\tH I\rJ\nK\tL";
System.out.println("Current : "+s);
System.out.println("Single Space : "+singleSpace(s));
System.out.println("Space count : "+spaceCount(s));
System.out.format("Replace all = %s", s.replaceAll("\\s+", ""));
// Example where it uses the most.
String s = "My name is yashwanth . M";
String s2 = "My nameis yashwanth.M";
System.out.println("Normal : "+s.equals(s2));
System.out.println("Replace : "+s.replaceAll("\\s+", "").equals(s2.replaceAll("\\s+", "")));
}
If String contains only single-space then replace() will not-replace,
If spaces are more than one, Then replace() action performs and removes spacess.
public static String singleSpace(String str){
return str.replaceAll(" +| +|\t|\r|\n","");
}
To count the number of spaces in a String.
public static String spaceCount(String str){
int i = 0;
while(str.indexOf(" ") > -1){
//str = str.replaceFirst(" ", ""+(i++));
str = str.replaceFirst(Pattern.quote(" "), ""+(i++));
}
return str;
}
Pattern.quote("?") returns literal pattern String.
My method before I found the second answer using regex as a better solution. Maybe someone needs this code.
private String replaceMultipleSpacesFromString(String s){
if(s.length() == 0 ) return "";
int timesSpace = 0;
String res = "";
for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
char c = s.charAt(i);
if(c == ' '){
timesSpace++;
if(timesSpace < 2)
res += c;
}else{
res += c;
timesSpace = 0;
}
}
return res.trim();
}
Stream version, filters spaces and tabs.
Stream.of(str.split("[ \\t]")).filter(s -> s.length() > 0).collect(Collectors.joining(" "))
I know replaceAll method is much easier but I wanted to post this as well.
public static String removeExtraSpace(String input) {
input= input.trim();
ArrayList <String> x= new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(input.split("")));
for(int i=0; i<x.size()-1;i++) {
if(x.get(i).equals(" ") && x.get(i+1).equals(" ")) {
x.remove(i);
i--;
}
}
String word="";
for(String each: x)
word+=each;
return word;
}
String myText = " Hello World ";
myText = myText.trim().replace(/ +(?= )/g,'');
// Output: "Hello World"
string.replaceAll("\s+", " ");
If you already use Guava (v. 19+) in your project you may want to use this:
CharMatcher.whitespace().trimAndCollapseFrom(input, ' ');
or, if you need to remove exactly SPACE symbol ( or U+0020, see more whitespaces) use:
CharMatcher.anyOf(" ").trimAndCollapseFrom(input, ' ');
public class RemoveExtraSpacesEfficient {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = "my name is mr space ";
char[] charArray = s.toCharArray();
char prev = s.charAt(0);
for (int i = 0; i < charArray.length; i++) {
char cur = charArray[i];
if (cur == ' ' && prev == ' ') {
} else {
System.out.print(cur);
}
prev = cur;
}
}
}
The above solution is the algorithm with the complexity of O(n) without using any java function.
Please use below code
package com.myjava.string;
import java.util.StringTokenizer;
public class MyStrRemoveMultSpaces {
public static void main(String a[]){
String str = "String With Multiple Spaces";
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(str, " ");
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
while(st.hasMoreElements()){
sb.append(st.nextElement()).append(" ");
}
System.out.println(sb.toString().trim());
}
}
I want to make strings like "a b c" to "prefix_a prefix_b prefix_c"
how to do that in java?
You can use the String method: replaceAll(String regex,String replacement)
String s = "a xyz c";
s = s.replaceAll("(\\w+)", "prefix_$1");
System.out.println(s);
You may need to tweek the regexp to meet your exact requirements.
Assuming a split character of a space (" "), the String can be split using the split method, then each new String can have the prefix_ appended, then concatenated back to a String:
String[] tokens = "a b c".split(" ");
String result = "";
for (String token : tokens) {
result += ("prefix_" + token + " ");
}
System.out.println(result);
Output:
prefix_a prefix_b prefix_c
Using a StringBuilder would improve performance if necessary:
String[] tokens = "a b c".split(" ");
StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
for (String token : tokens) {
result.append("prefix_");
result.append(token);
result.append(" ");
}
result.deleteCharAt(result.length() - 1);
System.out.println(result.toString());
The only catch with the first sample is that there will be an extraneous space at the end of the last token.
hope I'm not mis-reading the question. Are you just looking for straight up concatenation?
String someString = "a";
String yourPrefix = "prefix_"; // or whatever
String result = yourPrefix + someString;
System.out.println(result);
would show you
prefix_a
You can use StringTokenizer to enumerate over your string, with a "space" delimiter, and in your loop you can add your prefix onto the current element in your enumeration. Bottom line: See StringTokenizer in the javadocs.
You could also do it with regex and a word boundary ("\b"), but this seems brittle.
Another possibility is using String.split to convert your string into an array of strings, and then loop over your array of "a", "b", and "c" and prefix your array elements with the prefix of your choice.
You can split a string using regular expressions and put it back together with a loop over the resulting array:
public class Test {
public static void main (String args[]) {
String s = "a b c";
String[] s2 = s.split("\\s+");
String s3 = "";
if (s2.length > 0)
s3 = "pattern_" + s2[0];
for (int i = 1; i < s2.length; i++) {
s3 = s3 + " pattern_" + s2[i];
}
System.out.println (s3);
}
}
This is C# but should easily translate to Java (but it's not a very smart solution).
String input = "a b c";
String output (" " + input).Replace(" ", "prefix_")
UPDATE
The first solution has no spaces in the output. This solution requires a place holder symbol (#) not occuring in the input.
String output = ("#" + input.Replace(" ", " #")).Replace("#", "prefix_");
It's probably more efficient to use a StringBuilder.
String input = "a b c";
String[] items = input.Split(new[] {' '}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (String item in items)
{
sb.Append("prefix_");
sb.Append(item);
sb.Append(" ");
}
sb.Length--;
String output = sb.ToString();