I'm looking to take a string and break it into an array at line breaks (\n) I tried using split but that takes away the delimiter. I need the \n to be kept at the end of each line if it exists. Does something like this already exist or will I need to code it myself?
- thanks guys! it fixed my problem. I've tried a million times to understand regex, still haven't gotten it down yet.bwoogie– bwoogie2012-03-04 03:47:29 +00:00Commented Mar 4, 2012 at 3:47
- You should really have a look at the tutorial that I've linked to as it's the best regex tutorial that I've seen so far.Hovercraft Full Of Eels– Hovercraft Full Of Eels2012-03-04 04:18:16 +00:00Commented Mar 4, 2012 at 4:18
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3 Answers
I tried using split but that takes away the delimiter. I need the \n to be kept at the end of each line if it exists.
You can still use it and preserve the line break if you use look-ahead or look-behind in your regex. Check out the best regular expressions tutorial that I know of:
Regex Tutorial
Look-Around section of the Regex Tutorial.
For example:
public class RegexSplitPageBrk { public static void main(String[] args) { String text = "Hello world\nGoodbye cruel world!\nYeah this works!"; String regex = "(?<=\\n)"; // with look-behind! String[] tokens = text.split(regex); for (String token : tokens) { System.out.print(token); } } } The look-ahead or look-behind (also called "look-around") is non-destructive to the characters they match.
answered Mar 4, 2012 at 2:35
Hovercraft Full Of Eels
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2 Comments
debracey
Rather than simply saying "you're doing it wrong" -- why not provide the ... solution?
Hovercraft Full Of Eels
@debracey: that was the plan all along. I often post an initial answer and then add more to it, in order not to work on questions that get deleted. I hate it when that happens. I also don't like posting code without testing it first.
Alternative to @Hovercraft solution with Lookahead assertion:
String[] result = s.split("(?=\n)"); Further details about Lookahead in http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html
Comments
Another solution is just adding the delimiters after splitting
String delimiter = "\n" String[] split = input.split(delimiter); for(int i = 0; i < split.length; i++){ split[i] += delimiter; } 