Removing trailing and leading spaces

Question

I am trying to filter out commas and spaces from file input. I am returning a line of input(example below and passing that line to a method which is filtering out the commas and leading and trailing spaces)

John Paul Claurigh, Craig Megan, Bob a’ Chores 

should filter to three separate strings in the an array.

John Paul Claurigh
Craig Megan
Bob a’ Chores

My problem is not getting rid of the commas but eliminating the leading and trailing spaces.

public void listConverter(String list){
String[] array=listConverter.split(",");
for(int i=0; i<array.length; i++){
    addSubject(array[i]);
}

Can I use the split method to get rid of the leading and trailing spaces ?

Answer 1

Try something like:

String[] array = s.split("\\s*,\\s*");

Which means split by any number (0..n) spaces before or after comma (,).

Output:

<John Paul Claurigh>
<Craig Megan>
<Bob a’ Chores>

Answer 2

Your code seems correct, just use trim() to remove the leading/ending spaces

public void listConverter(String list){
String[] array=listConverter.split(",");
for(int i=0; i<array.length; i++){
    addSubject(array[i].trim());
}

Answer 3

A simple split with a space after comma is more than enough

String s = "John Paul Claurigh, Craig Megan, Bob a’ Chores";
String[]tokens = s.split(", ");//note the space after comma.
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(tokens));

Answer 4

You can try this:

public void listConverter(String list){
String[] array=listConverter.split("\\s*,\\s*");
for(int i=0; i<array.length; i++){
    addSubject(array[i]);
}

It will split on comma with or without any leading/trailing whitespaces.

Answer 5

A java 8 rendition

    String fileInput = "John Paul Claurigh,   Craig Megan    ,    Bob a’ Chores   ";

    List<String> namesList = Pattern.compile(",\\s")
            .splitAsStream(fileInput)
            .map(name -> name.trim())
            .collect(Collectors.toList());


    namesList.forEach(name -> System.out.println("NAME: " + name));

OUTPUT

NAME: John Paul Claurigh
NAME: Craig Megan
NAME: Bob a’ Chores