Why java String.split is ignoring last character is split is based on last character [duplicate]

Question

If I run the following code:

"testx".split("x")

the expectation is that we will get {"test", ""}, but instead java is returning {"test"}

But "xtest".split("x") returns {"", "test"}. Any ides why its behaving weirdly (or) do I have the wrong understanding?

Here is my JDK & system info:

JRE: 1.8.0_152-release-1024-b6 amd64

JVM: OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM by JetBrains s.r.o

Linux 4.4.0-34-generic

Answer 1

From String.split documentation:

This method works as if by invoking the two-argument split method with the given expression and a limit argument of zero. Trailing empty strings are therefore not included in the resulting array.

If you want to preserve the trailing empty string then you can use String.split(String, int) like this:

String str = "testx";
String[] values = str.split("x", -1);

Output:

{"test", ""}