Related
I have a string vaguely like this:
foo,bar,c;qual="baz,blurb",d;junk="quux,syzygy"
that I want to split by commas -- but I need to ignore commas in quotes. How can I do this? Seems like a regexp approach fails; I suppose I can manually scan and enter a different mode when I see a quote, but it would be nice to use preexisting libraries. (edit: I guess I meant libraries that are already part of the JDK or already part of a commonly-used libraries like Apache Commons.)
the above string should split into:
foo
bar
c;qual="baz,blurb"
d;junk="quux,syzygy"
note: this is NOT a CSV file, it's a single string contained in a file with a larger overall structure
Try:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] tokens = line.split(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)", -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
Output:
> foo
> bar
> c;qual="baz,blurb"
> d;junk="quux,syzygy"
In other words: split on the comma only if that comma has zero, or an even number of quotes ahead of it.
Or, a bit friendlier for the eyes:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String otherThanQuote = " [^\"] ";
String quotedString = String.format(" \" %s* \" ", otherThanQuote);
String regex = String.format("(?x) "+ // enable comments, ignore white spaces
", "+ // match a comma
"(?= "+ // start positive look ahead
" (?: "+ // start non-capturing group 1
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote' zero or more times
" %s "+ // match 'quotedString'
" )* "+ // end group 1 and repeat it zero or more times
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote'
" $ "+ // match the end of the string
") ", // stop positive look ahead
otherThanQuote, quotedString, otherThanQuote);
String[] tokens = line.split(regex, -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
which produces the same as the first example.
EDIT
As mentioned by #MikeFHay in the comments:
I prefer using Guava's Splitter, as it has saner defaults (see discussion above about empty matches being trimmed by String#split(), so I did:
Splitter.on(Pattern.compile(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)"))
While I do like regular expressions in general, for this kind of state-dependent tokenization I believe a simple parser (which in this case is much simpler than that word might make it sound) is probably a cleaner solution, in particular with regards to maintainability, e.g.:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
int start = 0;
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int current = 0; current < input.length(); current++) {
if (input.charAt(current) == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
else if (input.charAt(current) == ',' && !inQuotes) {
result.add(input.substring(start, current));
start = current + 1;
}
}
result.add(input.substring(start));
If you don't care about preserving the commas inside the quotes you could simplify this approach (no handling of start index, no last character special case) by replacing your commas in quotes by something else and then split at commas:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(input);
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int currentIndex = 0; currentIndex < builder.length(); currentIndex++) {
char currentChar = builder.charAt(currentIndex);
if (currentChar == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
if (currentChar == ',' && inQuotes) {
builder.setCharAt(currentIndex, ';'); // or '♡', and replace later
}
}
List<String> result = Arrays.asList(builder.toString().split(","));
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javacsv/
https://github.com/pupi1985/JavaCSV-Reloaded
(fork of the previous library that will allow the generated output to have Windows line terminators \r\n when not running Windows)
http://opencsv.sourceforge.net/
CSV API for Java
Can you recommend a Java library for reading (and possibly writing) CSV files?
Java lib or app to convert CSV to XML file?
I would not advise a regex answer from Bart, I find parsing solution better in this particular case (as Fabian proposed). I've tried regex solution and own parsing implementation I have found that:
Parsing is much faster than splitting with regex with backreferences - ~20 times faster for short strings, ~40 times faster for long strings.
Regex fails to find empty string after last comma. That was not in original question though, it was mine requirement.
My solution and test below.
String tested = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\",";
long start = System.nanoTime();
String[] tokens = tested.split(",(?=([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)");
long timeWithSplitting = System.nanoTime() - start;
start = System.nanoTime();
List<String> tokensList = new ArrayList<String>();
boolean inQuotes = false;
StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
for (char c : tested.toCharArray()) {
switch (c) {
case ',':
if (inQuotes) {
b.append(c);
} else {
tokensList.add(b.toString());
b = new StringBuilder();
}
break;
case '\"':
inQuotes = !inQuotes;
default:
b.append(c);
break;
}
}
tokensList.add(b.toString());
long timeWithParsing = System.nanoTime() - start;
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(tokens));
System.out.println(tokensList.toString());
System.out.printf("Time with splitting:\t%10d\n",timeWithSplitting);
System.out.printf("Time with parsing:\t%10d\n",timeWithParsing);
Of course you are free to change switch to else-ifs in this snippet if you feel uncomfortable with its ugliness. Note then lack of break after switch with separator. StringBuilder was chosen instead to StringBuffer by design to increase speed, where thread safety is irrelevant.
You're in that annoying boundary area where regexps almost won't do (as has been pointed out by Bart, escaping the quotes would make life hard) , and yet a full-blown parser seems like overkill.
If you are likely to need greater complexity any time soon I would go looking for a parser library. For example this one
I was impatient and chose not to wait for answers... for reference it doesn't look that hard to do something like this (which works for my application, I don't need to worry about escaped quotes, as the stuff in quotes is limited to a few constrained forms):
final static private Pattern splitSearchPattern = Pattern.compile("[\",]");
private List<String> splitByCommasNotInQuotes(String s) {
if (s == null)
return Collections.emptyList();
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = splitSearchPattern.matcher(s);
int pos = 0;
boolean quoteMode = false;
while (m.find())
{
String sep = m.group();
if ("\"".equals(sep))
{
quoteMode = !quoteMode;
}
else if (!quoteMode && ",".equals(sep))
{
int toPos = m.start();
list.add(s.substring(pos, toPos));
pos = m.end();
}
}
if (pos < s.length())
list.add(s.substring(pos));
return list;
}
(exercise for the reader: extend to handling escaped quotes by looking for backslashes also.)
Try a lookaround like (?!\"),(?!\"). This should match , that are not surrounded by ".
The simplest approach is not to match delimiters, i.e. commas, with a complex additional logic to match what is actually intended (the data which might be quoted strings), just to exclude false delimiters, but rather match the intended data in the first place.
The pattern consists of two alternatives, a quoted string ("[^"]*" or ".*?") or everything up to the next comma ([^,]+). To support empty cells, we have to allow the unquoted item to be empty and to consume the next comma, if any, and use the \\G anchor:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G\"(.*?)\",?|([^,]*),?");
The pattern also contains two capturing groups to get either, the quoted string’s content or the plain content.
Then, with Java 9, we can get an array as
String[] a = p.matcher(input).results()
.map(m -> m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1))
.toArray(String[]::new);
whereas older Java versions need a loop like
for(Matcher m = p.matcher(input); m.find(); ) {
String token = m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1);
System.out.println("found: "+token);
}
Adding the items to a List or an array is left as an excise to the reader.
For Java 8, you can use the results() implementation of this answer, to do it like the Java 9 solution.
For mixed content with embedded strings, like in the question, you can simply use
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G((\"(.*?)\"|[^,])*),?");
But then, the strings are kept in their quoted form.
what about a one-liner using String.split()?
String s = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] split = s.split( "(?<!\".{0,255}[^\"]),|,(?![^\"].*\")" );
A regular expression is not capable of handling escaped characters. For my application, I needed the ability to escape quotes and spaces (my separator is spaces, but the code is the same).
Here is my solution in Kotlin (the language from this particular application), based on the one from Fabian Steeg:
fun parseString(input: String): List<String> {
val result = mutableListOf<String>()
var inQuotes = false
var inEscape = false
val current = StringBuilder()
for (i in input.indices) {
// If this character is escaped, add it without looking
if (inEscape) {
inEscape = false
current.append(input[i])
continue
}
when (val c = input[i]) {
'\\' -> inEscape = true // escape the next character, \ isn't added to result
',' -> if (inQuotes) {
current.append(c)
} else {
result += current.toString()
current.clear()
}
'"' -> inQuotes = !inQuotes
else -> current.append(c)
}
}
if (current.isNotEmpty()) {
result += current.toString()
}
return result
}
I think this is not a place to use regular expressions. Contrary to other opinions, I don't think a parser is overkill. It's about 20 lines and fairly easy to test.
Rather than use lookahead and other crazy regex, just pull out the quotes first. That is, for every quote grouping, replace that grouping with __IDENTIFIER_1 or some other indicator, and map that grouping to a map of string,string.
After you split on comma, replace all mapped identifiers with the original string values.
I would do something like this:
boolean foundQuote = false;
if(charAtIndex(currentStringIndex) == '"')
{
foundQuote = true;
}
if(foundQuote == true)
{
//do nothing
}
else
{
string[] split = currentString.split(',');
}
I have a string vaguely like this:
foo,bar,c;qual="baz,blurb",d;junk="quux,syzygy"
that I want to split by commas -- but I need to ignore commas in quotes. How can I do this? Seems like a regexp approach fails; I suppose I can manually scan and enter a different mode when I see a quote, but it would be nice to use preexisting libraries. (edit: I guess I meant libraries that are already part of the JDK or already part of a commonly-used libraries like Apache Commons.)
the above string should split into:
foo
bar
c;qual="baz,blurb"
d;junk="quux,syzygy"
note: this is NOT a CSV file, it's a single string contained in a file with a larger overall structure
Try:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] tokens = line.split(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)", -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
Output:
> foo
> bar
> c;qual="baz,blurb"
> d;junk="quux,syzygy"
In other words: split on the comma only if that comma has zero, or an even number of quotes ahead of it.
Or, a bit friendlier for the eyes:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String otherThanQuote = " [^\"] ";
String quotedString = String.format(" \" %s* \" ", otherThanQuote);
String regex = String.format("(?x) "+ // enable comments, ignore white spaces
", "+ // match a comma
"(?= "+ // start positive look ahead
" (?: "+ // start non-capturing group 1
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote' zero or more times
" %s "+ // match 'quotedString'
" )* "+ // end group 1 and repeat it zero or more times
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote'
" $ "+ // match the end of the string
") ", // stop positive look ahead
otherThanQuote, quotedString, otherThanQuote);
String[] tokens = line.split(regex, -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
which produces the same as the first example.
EDIT
As mentioned by #MikeFHay in the comments:
I prefer using Guava's Splitter, as it has saner defaults (see discussion above about empty matches being trimmed by String#split(), so I did:
Splitter.on(Pattern.compile(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)"))
While I do like regular expressions in general, for this kind of state-dependent tokenization I believe a simple parser (which in this case is much simpler than that word might make it sound) is probably a cleaner solution, in particular with regards to maintainability, e.g.:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
int start = 0;
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int current = 0; current < input.length(); current++) {
if (input.charAt(current) == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
else if (input.charAt(current) == ',' && !inQuotes) {
result.add(input.substring(start, current));
start = current + 1;
}
}
result.add(input.substring(start));
If you don't care about preserving the commas inside the quotes you could simplify this approach (no handling of start index, no last character special case) by replacing your commas in quotes by something else and then split at commas:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(input);
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int currentIndex = 0; currentIndex < builder.length(); currentIndex++) {
char currentChar = builder.charAt(currentIndex);
if (currentChar == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
if (currentChar == ',' && inQuotes) {
builder.setCharAt(currentIndex, ';'); // or '♡', and replace later
}
}
List<String> result = Arrays.asList(builder.toString().split(","));
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javacsv/
https://github.com/pupi1985/JavaCSV-Reloaded
(fork of the previous library that will allow the generated output to have Windows line terminators \r\n when not running Windows)
http://opencsv.sourceforge.net/
CSV API for Java
Can you recommend a Java library for reading (and possibly writing) CSV files?
Java lib or app to convert CSV to XML file?
I would not advise a regex answer from Bart, I find parsing solution better in this particular case (as Fabian proposed). I've tried regex solution and own parsing implementation I have found that:
Parsing is much faster than splitting with regex with backreferences - ~20 times faster for short strings, ~40 times faster for long strings.
Regex fails to find empty string after last comma. That was not in original question though, it was mine requirement.
My solution and test below.
String tested = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\",";
long start = System.nanoTime();
String[] tokens = tested.split(",(?=([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)");
long timeWithSplitting = System.nanoTime() - start;
start = System.nanoTime();
List<String> tokensList = new ArrayList<String>();
boolean inQuotes = false;
StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
for (char c : tested.toCharArray()) {
switch (c) {
case ',':
if (inQuotes) {
b.append(c);
} else {
tokensList.add(b.toString());
b = new StringBuilder();
}
break;
case '\"':
inQuotes = !inQuotes;
default:
b.append(c);
break;
}
}
tokensList.add(b.toString());
long timeWithParsing = System.nanoTime() - start;
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(tokens));
System.out.println(tokensList.toString());
System.out.printf("Time with splitting:\t%10d\n",timeWithSplitting);
System.out.printf("Time with parsing:\t%10d\n",timeWithParsing);
Of course you are free to change switch to else-ifs in this snippet if you feel uncomfortable with its ugliness. Note then lack of break after switch with separator. StringBuilder was chosen instead to StringBuffer by design to increase speed, where thread safety is irrelevant.
You're in that annoying boundary area where regexps almost won't do (as has been pointed out by Bart, escaping the quotes would make life hard) , and yet a full-blown parser seems like overkill.
If you are likely to need greater complexity any time soon I would go looking for a parser library. For example this one
I was impatient and chose not to wait for answers... for reference it doesn't look that hard to do something like this (which works for my application, I don't need to worry about escaped quotes, as the stuff in quotes is limited to a few constrained forms):
final static private Pattern splitSearchPattern = Pattern.compile("[\",]");
private List<String> splitByCommasNotInQuotes(String s) {
if (s == null)
return Collections.emptyList();
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = splitSearchPattern.matcher(s);
int pos = 0;
boolean quoteMode = false;
while (m.find())
{
String sep = m.group();
if ("\"".equals(sep))
{
quoteMode = !quoteMode;
}
else if (!quoteMode && ",".equals(sep))
{
int toPos = m.start();
list.add(s.substring(pos, toPos));
pos = m.end();
}
}
if (pos < s.length())
list.add(s.substring(pos));
return list;
}
(exercise for the reader: extend to handling escaped quotes by looking for backslashes also.)
Try a lookaround like (?!\"),(?!\"). This should match , that are not surrounded by ".
The simplest approach is not to match delimiters, i.e. commas, with a complex additional logic to match what is actually intended (the data which might be quoted strings), just to exclude false delimiters, but rather match the intended data in the first place.
The pattern consists of two alternatives, a quoted string ("[^"]*" or ".*?") or everything up to the next comma ([^,]+). To support empty cells, we have to allow the unquoted item to be empty and to consume the next comma, if any, and use the \\G anchor:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G\"(.*?)\",?|([^,]*),?");
The pattern also contains two capturing groups to get either, the quoted string’s content or the plain content.
Then, with Java 9, we can get an array as
String[] a = p.matcher(input).results()
.map(m -> m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1))
.toArray(String[]::new);
whereas older Java versions need a loop like
for(Matcher m = p.matcher(input); m.find(); ) {
String token = m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1);
System.out.println("found: "+token);
}
Adding the items to a List or an array is left as an excise to the reader.
For Java 8, you can use the results() implementation of this answer, to do it like the Java 9 solution.
For mixed content with embedded strings, like in the question, you can simply use
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G((\"(.*?)\"|[^,])*),?");
But then, the strings are kept in their quoted form.
what about a one-liner using String.split()?
String s = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] split = s.split( "(?<!\".{0,255}[^\"]),|,(?![^\"].*\")" );
A regular expression is not capable of handling escaped characters. For my application, I needed the ability to escape quotes and spaces (my separator is spaces, but the code is the same).
Here is my solution in Kotlin (the language from this particular application), based on the one from Fabian Steeg:
fun parseString(input: String): List<String> {
val result = mutableListOf<String>()
var inQuotes = false
var inEscape = false
val current = StringBuilder()
for (i in input.indices) {
// If this character is escaped, add it without looking
if (inEscape) {
inEscape = false
current.append(input[i])
continue
}
when (val c = input[i]) {
'\\' -> inEscape = true // escape the next character, \ isn't added to result
',' -> if (inQuotes) {
current.append(c)
} else {
result += current.toString()
current.clear()
}
'"' -> inQuotes = !inQuotes
else -> current.append(c)
}
}
if (current.isNotEmpty()) {
result += current.toString()
}
return result
}
I think this is not a place to use regular expressions. Contrary to other opinions, I don't think a parser is overkill. It's about 20 lines and fairly easy to test.
Rather than use lookahead and other crazy regex, just pull out the quotes first. That is, for every quote grouping, replace that grouping with __IDENTIFIER_1 or some other indicator, and map that grouping to a map of string,string.
After you split on comma, replace all mapped identifiers with the original string values.
I would do something like this:
boolean foundQuote = false;
if(charAtIndex(currentStringIndex) == '"')
{
foundQuote = true;
}
if(foundQuote == true)
{
//do nothing
}
else
{
string[] split = currentString.split(',');
}
I have a multiline string which is delimited by a set of different delimiters:
(Text1)(DelimiterA)(Text2)(DelimiterC)(Text3)(DelimiterB)(Text4)
I can split this string into its parts, using String.split, but it seems that I can't get the actual string, which matched the delimiter regex.
In other words, this is what I get:
Text1
Text2
Text3
Text4
This is what I want
Text1
DelimiterA
Text2
DelimiterC
Text3
DelimiterB
Text4
Is there any JDK way to split the string using a delimiter regex but also keep the delimiters?
You can use lookahead and lookbehind, which are features of regular expressions.
System.out.println(Arrays.toString("a;b;c;d".split("(?<=;)")));
System.out.println(Arrays.toString("a;b;c;d".split("(?=;)")));
System.out.println(Arrays.toString("a;b;c;d".split("((?<=;)|(?=;))")));
And you will get:
[a;, b;, c;, d]
[a, ;b, ;c, ;d]
[a, ;, b, ;, c, ;, d]
The last one is what you want.
((?<=;)|(?=;)) equals to select an empty character before ; or after ;.
EDIT: Fabian Steeg's comments on readability is valid. Readability is always a problem with regular expressions. One thing I do to make regular expressions more readable is to create a variable, the name of which represents what the regular expression does. You can even put placeholders (e.g. %1$s) and use Java's String.format to replace the placeholders with the actual string you need to use; for example:
static public final String WITH_DELIMITER = "((?<=%1$s)|(?=%1$s))";
public void someMethod() {
final String[] aEach = "a;b;c;d".split(String.format(WITH_DELIMITER, ";"));
...
}
You want to use lookarounds, and split on zero-width matches. Here are some examples:
public class SplitNDump {
static void dump(String[] arr) {
for (String s : arr) {
System.out.format("[%s]", s);
}
System.out.println();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
dump("1,234,567,890".split(","));
// "[1][234][567][890]"
dump("1,234,567,890".split("(?=,)"));
// "[1][,234][,567][,890]"
dump("1,234,567,890".split("(?<=,)"));
// "[1,][234,][567,][890]"
dump("1,234,567,890".split("(?<=,)|(?=,)"));
// "[1][,][234][,][567][,][890]"
dump(":a:bb::c:".split("(?=:)|(?<=:)"));
// "[][:][a][:][bb][:][:][c][:]"
dump(":a:bb::c:".split("(?=(?!^):)|(?<=:)"));
// "[:][a][:][bb][:][:][c][:]"
dump(":::a::::b b::c:".split("(?=(?!^):)(?<!:)|(?!:)(?<=:)"));
// "[:::][a][::::][b b][::][c][:]"
dump("a,bb:::c d..e".split("(?!^)\\b"));
// "[a][,][bb][:::][c][ ][d][..][e]"
dump("ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException".split("(?<=[a-z])(?=[A-Z])"));
// "[Array][Index][Out][Of][Bounds][Exception]"
dump("1234567890".split("(?<=\\G.{4})"));
// "[1234][5678][90]"
// Split at the end of each run of letter
dump("Boooyaaaah! Yippieeee!!".split("(?<=(?=(.)\\1(?!\\1))..)"));
// "[Booo][yaaaa][h! Yipp][ieeee][!!]"
}
}
And yes, that is triply-nested assertion there in the last pattern.
Related questions
Java split is eating my characters.
Can you use zero-width matching regex in String split?
How do I convert CamelCase into human-readable names in Java?
Backreferences in lookbehind
See also
regular-expressions.info/Lookarounds
A very naive solution, that doesn't involve regex would be to perform a string replace on your delimiter along the lines of (assuming comma for delimiter):
string.replace(FullString, "," , "~,~")
Where you can replace tilda (~) with an appropriate unique delimiter.
Then if you do a split on your new delimiter then i believe you will get the desired result.
import java.util.regex.*;
import java.util.LinkedList;
public class Splitter {
private static final Pattern DEFAULT_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("\\s+");
private Pattern pattern;
private boolean keep_delimiters;
public Splitter(Pattern pattern, boolean keep_delimiters) {
this.pattern = pattern;
this.keep_delimiters = keep_delimiters;
}
public Splitter(String pattern, boolean keep_delimiters) {
this(Pattern.compile(pattern==null?"":pattern), keep_delimiters);
}
public Splitter(Pattern pattern) { this(pattern, true); }
public Splitter(String pattern) { this(pattern, true); }
public Splitter(boolean keep_delimiters) { this(DEFAULT_PATTERN, keep_delimiters); }
public Splitter() { this(DEFAULT_PATTERN); }
public String[] split(String text) {
if (text == null) {
text = "";
}
int last_match = 0;
LinkedList<String> splitted = new LinkedList<String>();
Matcher m = this.pattern.matcher(text);
while (m.find()) {
splitted.add(text.substring(last_match,m.start()));
if (this.keep_delimiters) {
splitted.add(m.group());
}
last_match = m.end();
}
splitted.add(text.substring(last_match));
return splitted.toArray(new String[splitted.size()]);
}
public static void main(String[] argv) {
if (argv.length != 2) {
System.err.println("Syntax: java Splitter <pattern> <text>");
return;
}
Pattern pattern = null;
try {
pattern = Pattern.compile(argv[0]);
}
catch (PatternSyntaxException e) {
System.err.println(e);
return;
}
Splitter splitter = new Splitter(pattern);
String text = argv[1];
int counter = 1;
for (String part : splitter.split(text)) {
System.out.printf("Part %d: \"%s\"\n", counter++, part);
}
}
}
/*
Example:
> java Splitter "\W+" "Hello World!"
Part 1: "Hello"
Part 2: " "
Part 3: "World"
Part 4: "!"
Part 5: ""
*/
I don't really like the other way, where you get an empty element in front and back. A delimiter is usually not at the beginning or at the end of the string, thus you most often end up wasting two good array slots.
Edit: Fixed limit cases. Commented source with test cases can be found here: http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/6453
Pass the 3rd aurgument as "true". It will return delimiters as well.
StringTokenizer(String str, String delimiters, true);
I know this is a very-very old question and answer has also been accepted. But still I would like to submit a very simple answer to original question. Consider this code:
String str = "Hello-World:How\nAre You&doing";
inputs = str.split("(?!^)\\b");
for (int i=0; i<inputs.length; i++) {
System.out.println("a[" + i + "] = \"" + inputs[i] + '"');
}
OUTPUT:
a[0] = "Hello"
a[1] = "-"
a[2] = "World"
a[3] = ":"
a[4] = "How"
a[5] = "
"
a[6] = "Are"
a[7] = " "
a[8] = "You"
a[9] = "&"
a[10] = "doing"
I am just using word boundary \b to delimit the words except when it is start of text.
I got here late, but returning to the original question, why not just use lookarounds?
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?<=\\w)(?=\\W)|(?<=\\W)(?=\\w)");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(p.split("'ab','cd','eg'")));
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(p.split("boo:and:foo")));
output:
[', ab, ',', cd, ',', eg, ']
[boo, :, and, :, foo]
EDIT: What you see above is what appears on the command line when I run that code, but I now see that it's a bit confusing. It's difficult to keep track of which commas are part of the result and which were added by Arrays.toString(). SO's syntax highlighting isn't helping either. In hopes of getting the highlighting to work with me instead of against me, here's how those arrays would look it I were declaring them in source code:
{ "'", "ab", "','", "cd", "','", "eg", "'" }
{ "boo", ":", "and", ":", "foo" }
I hope that's easier to read. Thanks for the heads-up, #finnw.
I had a look at the above answers and honestly none of them I find satisfactory. What you want to do is essentially mimic the Perl split functionality. Why Java doesn't allow this and have a join() method somewhere is beyond me but I digress. You don't even need a class for this really. Its just a function. Run this sample program:
Some of the earlier answers have excessive null-checking, which I recently wrote a response to a question here:
https://stackoverflow.com/users/18393/cletus
Anyway, the code:
public class Split {
public static List<String> split(String s, String pattern) {
assert s != null;
assert pattern != null;
return split(s, Pattern.compile(pattern));
}
public static List<String> split(String s, Pattern pattern) {
assert s != null;
assert pattern != null;
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(s);
List<String> ret = new ArrayList<String>();
int start = 0;
while (m.find()) {
ret.add(s.substring(start, m.start()));
ret.add(m.group());
start = m.end();
}
ret.add(start >= s.length() ? "" : s.substring(start));
return ret;
}
private static void testSplit(String s, String pattern) {
System.out.printf("Splitting '%s' with pattern '%s'%n", s, pattern);
List<String> tokens = split(s, pattern);
System.out.printf("Found %d matches%n", tokens.size());
int i = 0;
for (String token : tokens) {
System.out.printf(" %d/%d: '%s'%n", ++i, tokens.size(), token);
}
System.out.println();
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
testSplit("abcdefghij", "z"); // "abcdefghij"
testSplit("abcdefghij", "f"); // "abcde", "f", "ghi"
testSplit("abcdefghij", "j"); // "abcdefghi", "j", ""
testSplit("abcdefghij", "a"); // "", "a", "bcdefghij"
testSplit("abcdefghij", "[bdfh]"); // "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h", "ij"
}
}
I like the idea of StringTokenizer because it is Enumerable.
But it is also obsolete, and replace by String.split which return a boring String[] (and does not includes the delimiters).
So I implemented a StringTokenizerEx which is an Iterable, and which takes a true regexp to split a string.
A true regexp means it is not a 'Character sequence' repeated to form the delimiter:
'o' will only match 'o', and split 'ooo' into three delimiter, with two empty string inside:
[o], '', [o], '', [o]
But the regexp o+ will return the expected result when splitting "aooob"
[], 'a', [ooo], 'b', []
To use this StringTokenizerEx:
final StringTokenizerEx aStringTokenizerEx = new StringTokenizerEx("boo:and:foo", "o+");
final String firstDelimiter = aStringTokenizerEx.getDelimiter();
for(String aString: aStringTokenizerEx )
{
// uses the split String detected and memorized in 'aString'
final nextDelimiter = aStringTokenizerEx.getDelimiter();
}
The code of this class is available at DZone Snippets.
As usual for a code-challenge response (one self-contained class with test cases included), copy-paste it (in a 'src/test' directory) and run it. Its main() method illustrates the different usages.
Note: (late 2009 edit)
The article Final Thoughts: Java Puzzler: Splitting Hairs does a good work explaning the bizarre behavior in String.split().
Josh Bloch even commented in response to that article:
Yes, this is a pain. FWIW, it was done for a very good reason: compatibility with Perl.
The guy who did it is Mike "madbot" McCloskey, who now works with us at Google. Mike made sure that Java's regular expressions passed virtually every one of the 30K Perl regular expression tests (and ran faster).
The Google common-library Guava contains also a Splitter which is:
simpler to use
maintained by Google (and not by you)
So it may worth being checked out. From their initial rough documentation (pdf):
JDK has this:
String[] pieces = "foo.bar".split("\\.");
It's fine to use this if you want exactly what it does:
- regular expression
- result as an array
- its way of handling empty pieces
Mini-puzzler: ",a,,b,".split(",") returns...
(a) "", "a", "", "b", ""
(b) null, "a", null, "b", null
(c) "a", null, "b"
(d) "a", "b"
(e) None of the above
Answer: (e) None of the above.
",a,,b,".split(",")
returns
"", "a", "", "b"
Only trailing empties are skipped! (Who knows the workaround to prevent the skipping? It's a fun one...)
In any case, our Splitter is simply more flexible: The default behavior is simplistic:
Splitter.on(',').split(" foo, ,bar, quux,")
--> [" foo", " ", "bar", " quux", ""]
If you want extra features, ask for them!
Splitter.on(',')
.trimResults()
.omitEmptyStrings()
.split(" foo, ,bar, quux,")
--> ["foo", "bar", "quux"]
Order of config methods doesn't matter -- during splitting, trimming happens before checking for empties.
Here is a simple clean implementation which is consistent with Pattern#split and works with variable length patterns, which look behind cannot support, and it is easier to use. It is similar to the solution provided by #cletus.
public static String[] split(CharSequence input, String pattern) {
return split(input, Pattern.compile(pattern));
}
public static String[] split(CharSequence input, Pattern pattern) {
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(input);
int start = 0;
List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();
while (matcher.find()) {
result.add(input.subSequence(start, matcher.start()).toString());
result.add(matcher.group());
start = matcher.end();
}
if (start != input.length()) result.add(input.subSequence(start, input.length()).toString());
return result.toArray(new String[0]);
}
I don't do null checks here, Pattern#split doesn't, why should I. I don't like the if at the end but it is required for consistency with the Pattern#split . Otherwise I would unconditionally append, resulting in an empty string as the last element of the result if the input string ends with the pattern.
I convert to String[] for consistency with Pattern#split, I use new String[0] rather than new String[result.size()], see here for why.
Here are my tests:
#Test
public void splitsVariableLengthPattern() {
String[] result = Split.split("/foo/$bar/bas", "\\$\\w+");
Assert.assertArrayEquals(new String[] { "/foo/", "$bar", "/bas" }, result);
}
#Test
public void splitsEndingWithPattern() {
String[] result = Split.split("/foo/$bar", "\\$\\w+");
Assert.assertArrayEquals(new String[] { "/foo/", "$bar" }, result);
}
#Test
public void splitsStartingWithPattern() {
String[] result = Split.split("$foo/bar", "\\$\\w+");
Assert.assertArrayEquals(new String[] { "", "$foo", "/bar" }, result);
}
#Test
public void splitsNoMatchesPattern() {
String[] result = Split.split("/foo/bar", "\\$\\w+");
Assert.assertArrayEquals(new String[] { "/foo/bar" }, result);
}
I will post my working versions also(first is really similar to Markus).
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()]);
}
And here is second solution and its round 50% faster than first one:
public static String[] splitIncludeDelimeter2(String regex, String text){
List<String> list = new LinkedList<>();
Matcher matcher = Pattern.compile(regex).matcher(text);
StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer();
while(matcher.find()){
matcher.appendReplacement(stringBuffer, matcher.group());
list.add(stringBuffer.toString());
stringBuffer.setLength(0); //clear buffer
}
matcher.appendTail(stringBuffer); ///dodajemy reszte ciagu
list.add(stringBuffer.toString());
return list.toArray(new String[list.size()]);
}
Another candidate solution using a regex. Retains token order, correctly matches multiple tokens of the same type in a row. The downside is that the regex is kind of nasty.
package javaapplication2;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class JavaApplication2 {
/**
* #param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
String num = "58.5+variable-+98*78/96+a/78.7-3443*12-3";
// Terrifying regex:
// (a)|(b)|(c) match a or b or c
// where
// (a) is one or more digits optionally followed by a decimal point
// followed by one or more digits: (\d+(\.\d+)?)
// (b) is one of the set + * / - occurring once: ([+*/-])
// (c) is a sequence of one or more lowercase latin letter: ([a-z]+)
Pattern tokenPattern = Pattern.compile("(\\d+(\\.\\d+)?)|([+*/-])|([a-z]+)");
Matcher tokenMatcher = tokenPattern.matcher(num);
List<String> tokens = new ArrayList<>();
while (!tokenMatcher.hitEnd()) {
if (tokenMatcher.find()) {
tokens.add(tokenMatcher.group());
} else {
// report error
break;
}
}
System.out.println(tokens);
}
}
Sample output:
[58.5, +, variable, -, +, 98, *, 78, /, 96, +, a, /, 78.7, -, 3443, *, 12, -, 3]
I don't know of an existing function in the Java API that does this (which is not to say it doesn't exist), but here's my own implementation (one or more delimiters will be returned as a single token; if you want each delimiter to be returned as a separate token, it will need a bit of adaptation):
static String[] splitWithDelimiters(String s) {
if (s == null || s.length() == 0) {
return new String[0];
}
LinkedList<String> result = new LinkedList<String>();
StringBuilder sb = null;
boolean wasLetterOrDigit = !Character.isLetterOrDigit(s.charAt(0));
for (char c : s.toCharArray()) {
if (Character.isLetterOrDigit(c) ^ wasLetterOrDigit) {
if (sb != null) {
result.add(sb.toString());
}
sb = new StringBuilder();
wasLetterOrDigit = !wasLetterOrDigit;
}
sb.append(c);
}
result.add(sb.toString());
return result.toArray(new String[0]);
}
I suggest using Pattern and Matcher, which will almost certainly achieve what you want. Your regular expression will need to be somewhat more complicated than what you are using in String.split.
I don't think it is possible with String#split, but you can use a StringTokenizer, though that won't allow you to define your delimiter as a regex, but only as a class of single-digit characters:
new StringTokenizer("Hello, world. Hi!", ",.!", true); // true for returnDelims
If you can afford, use Java's replace(CharSequence target, CharSequence replacement) method and fill in another delimiter to split with.
Example:
I want to split the string "boo:and:foo" and keep ':' at its righthand String.
String str = "boo:and:foo";
str = str.replace(":","newdelimiter:");
String[] tokens = str.split("newdelimiter");
Important note: This only works if you have no further "newdelimiter" in your String! Thus, it is not a general solution.
But if you know a CharSequence of which you can be sure that it will never appear in the String, this is a very simple solution.
Fast answer: use non physical bounds like \b to split. I will try and experiment to see if it works (used that in PHP and JS).
It is possible, and kind of work, but might split too much. Actually, it depends on the string you want to split and the result you need. Give more details, we will help you better.
Another way is to do your own split, capturing the delimiter (supposing it is variable) and adding it afterward to the result.
My quick test:
String str = "'ab','cd','eg'";
String[] stra = str.split("\\b");
for (String s : stra) System.out.print(s + "|");
System.out.println();
Result:
'|ab|','|cd|','|eg|'|
A bit too much... :-)
Tweaked Pattern.split() to include matched pattern to the list
Added
// add match to the list
matchList.add(input.subSequence(start, end).toString());
Full source
public static String[] inclusiveSplit(String input, String re, int limit) {
int index = 0;
boolean matchLimited = limit > 0;
ArrayList<String> matchList = new ArrayList<String>();
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(re);
Matcher m = pattern.matcher(input);
// Add segments before each match found
while (m.find()) {
int end = m.end();
if (!matchLimited || matchList.size() < limit - 1) {
int start = m.start();
String match = input.subSequence(index, start).toString();
matchList.add(match);
// add match to the list
matchList.add(input.subSequence(start, end).toString());
index = end;
} else if (matchList.size() == limit - 1) { // last one
String match = input.subSequence(index, input.length())
.toString();
matchList.add(match);
index = end;
}
}
// If no match was found, return this
if (index == 0)
return new String[] { input.toString() };
// Add remaining segment
if (!matchLimited || matchList.size() < limit)
matchList.add(input.subSequence(index, input.length()).toString());
// Construct result
int resultSize = matchList.size();
if (limit == 0)
while (resultSize > 0 && matchList.get(resultSize - 1).equals(""))
resultSize--;
String[] result = new String[resultSize];
return matchList.subList(0, resultSize).toArray(result);
}
Here's a groovy version based on some of the code above, in case it helps. It's short, anyway. Conditionally includes the head and tail (if they are not empty). The last part is a demo/test case.
List splitWithTokens(str, pat) {
def tokens=[]
def lastMatch=0
def m = str=~pat
while (m.find()) {
if (m.start() > 0) tokens << str[lastMatch..<m.start()]
tokens << m.group()
lastMatch=m.end()
}
if (lastMatch < str.length()) tokens << str[lastMatch..<str.length()]
tokens
}
[['<html><head><title>this is the title</title></head>',/<[^>]+>/],
['before<html><head><title>this is the title</title></head>after',/<[^>]+>/]
].each {
println splitWithTokens(*it)
}
An extremely naive and inefficient solution which works nevertheless.Use split twice on the string and then concatenate the two arrays
String temp[]=str.split("\\W");
String temp2[]=str.split("\\w||\\s");
int i=0;
for(String string:temp)
System.out.println(string);
String temp3[]=new String[temp.length-1];
for(String string:temp2)
{
System.out.println(string);
if((string.equals("")!=true)&&(string.equals("\\s")!=true))
{
temp3[i]=string;
i++;
}
// System.out.println(temp.length);
// System.out.println(temp2.length);
}
System.out.println(temp3.length);
String[] temp4=new String[temp.length+temp3.length];
int j=0;
for(i=0;i<temp.length;i++)
{
temp4[j]=temp[i];
j=j+2;
}
j=1;
for(i=0;i<temp3.length;i++)
{
temp4[j]=temp3[i];
j+=2;
}
for(String s:temp4)
System.out.println(s);
String expression = "((A+B)*C-D)*E";
expression = expression.replaceAll("\\+", "~+~");
expression = expression.replaceAll("\\*", "~*~");
expression = expression.replaceAll("-", "~-~");
expression = expression.replaceAll("/+", "~/~");
expression = expression.replaceAll("\\(", "~(~"); //also you can use [(] instead of \\(
expression = expression.replaceAll("\\)", "~)~"); //also you can use [)] instead of \\)
expression = expression.replaceAll("~~", "~");
if(expression.startsWith("~")) {
expression = expression.substring(1);
}
String[] expressionArray = expression.split("~");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(expressionArray));
One of the subtleties in this question involves the "leading delimiter" question: if you are going to have a combined array of tokens and delimiters you have to know whether it starts with a token or a delimiter. You could of course just assume that a leading delim should be discarded but this seems an unjustified assumption. You might also want to know whether you have a trailing delim or not. This sets two boolean flags accordingly.
Written in Groovy but a Java version should be fairly obvious:
String tokenRegex = /[\p{L}\p{N}]+/ // a String in Groovy, Unicode alphanumeric
def finder = phraseForTokenising =~ tokenRegex
// NB in Groovy the variable 'finder' is then of class java.util.regex.Matcher
def finderIt = finder.iterator() // extra method added to Matcher by Groovy magic
int start = 0
boolean leadingDelim, trailingDelim
def combinedTokensAndDelims = [] // create an array in Groovy
while( finderIt.hasNext() )
{
def token = finderIt.next()
int finderStart = finder.start()
String delim = phraseForTokenising[ start .. finderStart - 1 ]
// Groovy: above gets slice of String/array
if( start == 0 ) leadingDelim = finderStart != 0
if( start > 0 || leadingDelim ) combinedTokensAndDelims << delim
combinedTokensAndDelims << token // add element to end of array
start = finder.end()
}
// start == 0 indicates no tokens found
if( start > 0 ) {
// finish by seeing whether there is a trailing delim
trailingDelim = start < phraseForTokenising.length()
if( trailingDelim ) combinedTokensAndDelims << phraseForTokenising[ start .. -1 ]
println( "leading delim? $leadingDelim, trailing delim? $trailingDelim, combined array:\n $combinedTokensAndDelims" )
}
If you want keep character then use split method with loophole in .split() method.
See this example:
public class SplitExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String str = "Javathomettt";
System.out.println("method 1");
System.out.println("Returning words:");
String[] arr = str.split("t", 40);
for (String w : arr) {
System.out.println(w+"t");
}
System.out.println("Split array length: "+arr.length);
System.out.println("method 2");
System.out.println(str.replaceAll("t", "\n"+"t"));
}
I don't know Java too well, but if you can't find a Split method that does that, I suggest you just make your own.
string[] mySplit(string s,string delimiter)
{
string[] result = s.Split(delimiter);
for(int i=0;i<result.Length-1;i++)
{
result[i] += delimiter; //this one would add the delimiter to each items end except the last item,
//you can modify it however you want
}
}
string[] res = mySplit(myString,myDelimiter);
Its not too elegant, but it'll do.
I have a string vaguely like this:
foo,bar,c;qual="baz,blurb",d;junk="quux,syzygy"
that I want to split by commas -- but I need to ignore commas in quotes. How can I do this? Seems like a regexp approach fails; I suppose I can manually scan and enter a different mode when I see a quote, but it would be nice to use preexisting libraries. (edit: I guess I meant libraries that are already part of the JDK or already part of a commonly-used libraries like Apache Commons.)
the above string should split into:
foo
bar
c;qual="baz,blurb"
d;junk="quux,syzygy"
note: this is NOT a CSV file, it's a single string contained in a file with a larger overall structure
Try:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] tokens = line.split(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)", -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
Output:
> foo
> bar
> c;qual="baz,blurb"
> d;junk="quux,syzygy"
In other words: split on the comma only if that comma has zero, or an even number of quotes ahead of it.
Or, a bit friendlier for the eyes:
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String line = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String otherThanQuote = " [^\"] ";
String quotedString = String.format(" \" %s* \" ", otherThanQuote);
String regex = String.format("(?x) "+ // enable comments, ignore white spaces
", "+ // match a comma
"(?= "+ // start positive look ahead
" (?: "+ // start non-capturing group 1
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote' zero or more times
" %s "+ // match 'quotedString'
" )* "+ // end group 1 and repeat it zero or more times
" %s* "+ // match 'otherThanQuote'
" $ "+ // match the end of the string
") ", // stop positive look ahead
otherThanQuote, quotedString, otherThanQuote);
String[] tokens = line.split(regex, -1);
for(String t : tokens) {
System.out.println("> "+t);
}
}
}
which produces the same as the first example.
EDIT
As mentioned by #MikeFHay in the comments:
I prefer using Guava's Splitter, as it has saner defaults (see discussion above about empty matches being trimmed by String#split(), so I did:
Splitter.on(Pattern.compile(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)"))
While I do like regular expressions in general, for this kind of state-dependent tokenization I believe a simple parser (which in this case is much simpler than that word might make it sound) is probably a cleaner solution, in particular with regards to maintainability, e.g.:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
int start = 0;
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int current = 0; current < input.length(); current++) {
if (input.charAt(current) == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
else if (input.charAt(current) == ',' && !inQuotes) {
result.add(input.substring(start, current));
start = current + 1;
}
}
result.add(input.substring(start));
If you don't care about preserving the commas inside the quotes you could simplify this approach (no handling of start index, no last character special case) by replacing your commas in quotes by something else and then split at commas:
String input = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(input);
boolean inQuotes = false;
for (int currentIndex = 0; currentIndex < builder.length(); currentIndex++) {
char currentChar = builder.charAt(currentIndex);
if (currentChar == '\"') inQuotes = !inQuotes; // toggle state
if (currentChar == ',' && inQuotes) {
builder.setCharAt(currentIndex, ';'); // or '♡', and replace later
}
}
List<String> result = Arrays.asList(builder.toString().split(","));
http://sourceforge.net/projects/javacsv/
https://github.com/pupi1985/JavaCSV-Reloaded
(fork of the previous library that will allow the generated output to have Windows line terminators \r\n when not running Windows)
http://opencsv.sourceforge.net/
CSV API for Java
Can you recommend a Java library for reading (and possibly writing) CSV files?
Java lib or app to convert CSV to XML file?
I would not advise a regex answer from Bart, I find parsing solution better in this particular case (as Fabian proposed). I've tried regex solution and own parsing implementation I have found that:
Parsing is much faster than splitting with regex with backreferences - ~20 times faster for short strings, ~40 times faster for long strings.
Regex fails to find empty string after last comma. That was not in original question though, it was mine requirement.
My solution and test below.
String tested = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\",";
long start = System.nanoTime();
String[] tokens = tested.split(",(?=([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)");
long timeWithSplitting = System.nanoTime() - start;
start = System.nanoTime();
List<String> tokensList = new ArrayList<String>();
boolean inQuotes = false;
StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
for (char c : tested.toCharArray()) {
switch (c) {
case ',':
if (inQuotes) {
b.append(c);
} else {
tokensList.add(b.toString());
b = new StringBuilder();
}
break;
case '\"':
inQuotes = !inQuotes;
default:
b.append(c);
break;
}
}
tokensList.add(b.toString());
long timeWithParsing = System.nanoTime() - start;
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(tokens));
System.out.println(tokensList.toString());
System.out.printf("Time with splitting:\t%10d\n",timeWithSplitting);
System.out.printf("Time with parsing:\t%10d\n",timeWithParsing);
Of course you are free to change switch to else-ifs in this snippet if you feel uncomfortable with its ugliness. Note then lack of break after switch with separator. StringBuilder was chosen instead to StringBuffer by design to increase speed, where thread safety is irrelevant.
You're in that annoying boundary area where regexps almost won't do (as has been pointed out by Bart, escaping the quotes would make life hard) , and yet a full-blown parser seems like overkill.
If you are likely to need greater complexity any time soon I would go looking for a parser library. For example this one
I was impatient and chose not to wait for answers... for reference it doesn't look that hard to do something like this (which works for my application, I don't need to worry about escaped quotes, as the stuff in quotes is limited to a few constrained forms):
final static private Pattern splitSearchPattern = Pattern.compile("[\",]");
private List<String> splitByCommasNotInQuotes(String s) {
if (s == null)
return Collections.emptyList();
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Matcher m = splitSearchPattern.matcher(s);
int pos = 0;
boolean quoteMode = false;
while (m.find())
{
String sep = m.group();
if ("\"".equals(sep))
{
quoteMode = !quoteMode;
}
else if (!quoteMode && ",".equals(sep))
{
int toPos = m.start();
list.add(s.substring(pos, toPos));
pos = m.end();
}
}
if (pos < s.length())
list.add(s.substring(pos));
return list;
}
(exercise for the reader: extend to handling escaped quotes by looking for backslashes also.)
Try a lookaround like (?!\"),(?!\"). This should match , that are not surrounded by ".
The simplest approach is not to match delimiters, i.e. commas, with a complex additional logic to match what is actually intended (the data which might be quoted strings), just to exclude false delimiters, but rather match the intended data in the first place.
The pattern consists of two alternatives, a quoted string ("[^"]*" or ".*?") or everything up to the next comma ([^,]+). To support empty cells, we have to allow the unquoted item to be empty and to consume the next comma, if any, and use the \\G anchor:
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G\"(.*?)\",?|([^,]*),?");
The pattern also contains two capturing groups to get either, the quoted string’s content or the plain content.
Then, with Java 9, we can get an array as
String[] a = p.matcher(input).results()
.map(m -> m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1))
.toArray(String[]::new);
whereas older Java versions need a loop like
for(Matcher m = p.matcher(input); m.find(); ) {
String token = m.group(m.start(1)<0? 2: 1);
System.out.println("found: "+token);
}
Adding the items to a List or an array is left as an excise to the reader.
For Java 8, you can use the results() implementation of this answer, to do it like the Java 9 solution.
For mixed content with embedded strings, like in the question, you can simply use
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\G((\"(.*?)\"|[^,])*),?");
But then, the strings are kept in their quoted form.
what about a one-liner using String.split()?
String s = "foo,bar,c;qual=\"baz,blurb\",d;junk=\"quux,syzygy\"";
String[] split = s.split( "(?<!\".{0,255}[^\"]),|,(?![^\"].*\")" );
A regular expression is not capable of handling escaped characters. For my application, I needed the ability to escape quotes and spaces (my separator is spaces, but the code is the same).
Here is my solution in Kotlin (the language from this particular application), based on the one from Fabian Steeg:
fun parseString(input: String): List<String> {
val result = mutableListOf<String>()
var inQuotes = false
var inEscape = false
val current = StringBuilder()
for (i in input.indices) {
// If this character is escaped, add it without looking
if (inEscape) {
inEscape = false
current.append(input[i])
continue
}
when (val c = input[i]) {
'\\' -> inEscape = true // escape the next character, \ isn't added to result
',' -> if (inQuotes) {
current.append(c)
} else {
result += current.toString()
current.clear()
}
'"' -> inQuotes = !inQuotes
else -> current.append(c)
}
}
if (current.isNotEmpty()) {
result += current.toString()
}
return result
}
I think this is not a place to use regular expressions. Contrary to other opinions, I don't think a parser is overkill. It's about 20 lines and fairly easy to test.
Rather than use lookahead and other crazy regex, just pull out the quotes first. That is, for every quote grouping, replace that grouping with __IDENTIFIER_1 or some other indicator, and map that grouping to a map of string,string.
After you split on comma, replace all mapped identifiers with the original string values.
I would do something like this:
boolean foundQuote = false;
if(charAtIndex(currentStringIndex) == '"')
{
foundQuote = true;
}
if(foundQuote == true)
{
//do nothing
}
else
{
string[] split = currentString.split(',');
}
I searched even on page 3 at google for this problem, but it seems there is no proper solution.
The following string
"zhg,wimö,'astor wohnideen','multistore 2002',yonza,'asdf, saflk','marc o\'polo'"
should be splitted by comma in Java. The quotes can be double quotes or single. I tried the following regex
,(?=([^\"']*[\"'][^\"']*[\"'])*[^\"']*$)
but because of the escaped quote at 'marc o\'polo' it fails...
Can somebody help me out?
Code for tryout:
String checkString = "zhg,wimö,'astor wohnideen','multistore 2002',yonza,'asdf, saflk','marc \'opolo'";
Pattern COMMA_PATTERN = Pattern.compile(",(?=([^\"']*[\"'][^\"']*[\"'])*[^\"']*$)");
String[] splits = COMMA_PATTERN.split(checkString);
for (String split : splits) {
System.out.println(split);
}
You can do it like this:
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(?>[^,'\"]++|(['\"])(?>[^\"'\\\\]++|\\\\.|(?!\\1)[\"'])*\\1|(?<=,|^)\\s*(?=,|$))+", Pattern.DOTALL);
Matcher m = p.matcher(checkString);
while(m.find()) {
result.add(m.group());
}
Splitting CSV with regex is not the right solution... which is probably why you are struggling to find one with split/csv/regex search terms.
Using a dedicated library with a state machine is typically the best solution. There are a number of them:
This closed question seems relevant: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12410538/which-is-the-best-csv-parser-in-java
I have used opencsv in the past, and I beleive the apache csv tool is good too. I am sure there are others. I am specifically not linking any library because you should o your own research on what to use.
I have been involved in a number of commercail projects where the csv parser was custom-built, but I see no reason why that should still be done.
What I can say, is that regex and CSV get very, very complicated relatively quickly (as you have discovered), and that for performance reasons alone, a 'raw' parser is better.
If you are parsing CVS (or something very similar) than using one of the stablished frameworks normally is a good idea as they cover most corner-cases and are tested by a wider audience thorough usage in different projects.
If however libraries are no option you could go with e.g. this:
public class Curios {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String checkString = "zhg,wimö,'astor wohnideen','multistore 2002',yonza,'asdf, saflk','marc o\\'polo'";
List<String> result = splitValues(checkString);
System.out.println(result);
System.out.println(splitValues("zhg\\,wi\\'mö,'astor wohnideen','multistore 2002',\"yo\\\"nza\",'asdf, saflk\\\\','marc o\\'polo',"));
}
public static List<String> splitValues(String checkString) {
List<String> result = new ArrayList<String>();
// Used for reporting errors and detecting quotes
int startOfValue = 0;
// Used to mark the next character as being escaped
boolean charEscaped = false;
// Is the current value quoted?
boolean quoted = false;
// Quote-character in use (only valid when quoted == true)
char quote = '\0';
// All characters read from current value
final StringBuilder currentValue = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < checkString.length(); i++) {
final char charAt = checkString.charAt(i);
if (i == startOfValue && !quoted) {
// We have not yet decided if this is a quoted value, but we are right at the beginning of the next value
if (charAt == '\'' || charAt == '"') {
// This will be a quoted String
quote = charAt;
quoted = true;
startOfValue++;
continue;
}
}
if (!charEscaped) {
if (charAt == '\\') {
charEscaped = true;
} else if (quoted && charAt == quote) {
if (i + 1 == checkString.length()) {
// So we don't throw an exception
quoted = false;
// Last value will be added to result outside loop
break;
} else if (checkString.charAt(i + 1) == ',') {
// Ensure we don't parse , again
i++;
// Add the value to the result
result.add(currentValue.toString());
// Prepare for next value
currentValue.setLength(0);
startOfValue = i + 1;
quoted = false;
} else {
throw new IllegalStateException(String.format(
"Value was quoted with %s but prematurely terminated at position %d " +
"maybe a \\ is missing before this %s or a , after? " +
"Value up to this point: \"%s\"",
quote, i, quote, checkString.substring(startOfValue, i + 1)));
}
} else if (!quoted && charAt == ',') {
// Add the value to the result
result.add(currentValue.toString());
// Prepare for next value
currentValue.setLength(0);
startOfValue = i + 1;
} else {
// a boring character
currentValue.append(charAt);
}
} else {
// So we don't forget to reset for next char...
charEscaped = false;
// Here we can do interpolations
switch (charAt) {
case 'n':
currentValue.append('\n');
break;
case 'r':
currentValue.append('\r');
break;
case 't':
currentValue.append('\t');
break;
default:
currentValue.append(charAt);
}
}
}
if(charEscaped) {
throw new IllegalStateException("Input ended with a stray \\");
} else if (quoted) {
throw new IllegalStateException("Last value was quoted with "+quote+" but there is no terminating quote.");
}
// Add the last value to the result
result.add(currentValue.toString());
return result;
}
}
Why not simply a regular expression?
Regular expressions don't understand nesting very well. While certainly the regular expression by Casimir does a good job, differences between quoted and unquoted values are easier to model in some form of a state-machine. You see how difficult it was to ensure you don't accidentally match an ecaped or quoted ,. Also while you are allready evaluating every character it is easy to interpret escape-sequences like \n
What to watch out for?
My function was not written for white-space arround values (this can be changed)
My function will interpret the escape-sequences \n, \r, \t, \\ like most C-style language interpreters while reading \x as x (this can easily be changed)
My function accepts quotes and escapes inside unquoted values (this can easily be changed)
I did only a few tests and tried my best to exhibit a good memory-management and timing, but you will need to see if it fits your needs.