Java String Split on any character (including regex special characters)

Question

I'm sure I'm just overlooking something here...

Is there a simple way to split a String on an explicit character without applying RegEx rules?

For instance, I receive a string with a dynamic delimiter, I know the 5th character defines the delimiter.

String s = "This,is,a,sample";

For this, it's simple to do

String delimiter = String.valueOf(s.charAt(4));
String[] result = s.split(delimiter);

However, when I have a delimiter that's a special RegEx character, this doesn't work:

String s = "This*is*a*sample";

So... is there a way to split the string on an explicit character without trying to apply extra RegEx rules? I feel like I must be missing something pretty simple.

Answer 1

split uses a regular expression as its argument. * is a meta-character used to match zero of more characters in regular expressions, You could use Pattern#quote to avoid interpreting the character

String[] result = s.split(Pattern.quote(delimiter));