split method in java

[Nev Mehta]

Hello all,

String nnEntry = "1|Some_123F_N45-3568_1111098908|1|1|0"
String[] tokens = nnEntry.split("|");

tokens ends up looking like this:
[, 1, |, S, o, m, e, _, 1, 2, 3, F, _, N, 4, 5, -, 3, 5, 6, 8, _, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 9, 8, 9, 0, 8, |, 1, |, 1, |, 0]

whereas i need it to look like;
[1 , Some_123F_N45-3568_1111098908, 1, 1, 0]

No idea why thats happening;

Thanks'

[Michael Dunn]

//String[] tokens = nnEntry.split("|");
String[] tokens = nnEntry.split("\\|");

[Campbell Ritchie]

A bit more explanation is called for. If you go through the Java™ Tutorials section, you find that | is a "meta-character" for "OR" which means you are splitting on what is before the | or what is after the |. So in this instance you are splitting on "nothing" or "nothing". After each letter the application finds"nothing" so it splits there.

[Nev Mehta]

Don't know if i'm thinking correct but shouldn't splitting on 'nothing' mean the entire string becomes one token.

if ( nextChar == '' ) then split into token else go on

Wouldnt this always be false (where NOTHING is empty string)?

[Michael Dunn]

> ...but shouldn't splitting on 'nothing' mean the entire string becomes one token.

the command is to 'split' the string.
with no parameters (or 'nothing'), the string will be split into individual characters

[Campbell Ritchie]

Nev Mehta wrote:Don't know if i'm thinking correct but shouldn't splitting on 'nothing' mean the entire string becomes one token.

if ( nextChar == '' ) then split into token else go on

Wouldnt this always be false (where NOTHING is empty string)?

No, it means "if you find nothing after this character and before the next." And there is always "nothing" between character 1 and character 2!

[Rob Spoor]

There is no such character as ''.