Splitting a string into two

Question

I am attempting to split a word from its punctuation:

So for example if the word is "Hello?". I want to store "Hello" in one variable and the "?" in another variable.

I tried using .split method but deletes the delimiter (the punctuation) , which means you wouldn't conserve the punctuation character.

String inWord = "hello?";
String word;
String punctuation = null;
if (inWord.contains(","+"?"+"."+"!"+";")) {
    String parts[] = inWord.split("\\," + "\\?" + "\\." + "\\!" + "\\;");
    word = parts[0];
    punctuation = parts[1];
} else {
    word = inWord;
}

System.out.println(word);
System.out.println(punctuation);

I am stuck I cant see another method of doing it.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You could use a positive lookahead to split so you don't actually use the punctuation to split, but the position right before it:

inWord.split("(?=[,?.!;])");

ideone demo

Answer 2

Further to the other suggestions, you can also use the 'word boundary' matcher '\\b'. This may not always match what you are looking for, it detects the boundary between a word and a non-word, as documented: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html

In your example, it works, though the first element in the array will be a blank string.

Here is some working code:

String inWord = "hello?";
String word;
String punctuation = null;
if (inWord.matches(".*[,?.!;].*")) {
    String parts[] = inWord.split("\\b");
    word = parts[1];
    punctuation = parts[2];
    System.out.println(parts.length);
} else {
    word = inWord;
}

System.out.println(word);
System.out.println(punctuation);

You can see it running here: http://ideone.com/3GmgqD

I've also fixed your .contains to use .matches instead.

Answer 3

I think you can use the below regex. But not tried. Give it a try.

input.split("[\\p{P}]")

Answer 4

You could use substring here. Something like this:

    String inWord = "hello?";
    String word = inWord.substring (0, 5);
    String punctuation = inWord.substring (5, inWord.length ());

    System.out.println (word);
    System.out.println (punctuation);