Java - If word ends with user-entered delimiters, then do x

Question

I am new to Java and am currently writing a program that takes use-entered arguments for delimiters of a text file containing sentences, and then determines the number of sentences within that text file based on the provided delimiters.

When running my Main.java I want the user to be able to do the following (where -d is the flag for delimiter and the characters following are the delimiters):

java Main -d !?. or java Main -d .?

Or any other combination. My questions are:

1. Is the best way to store the delimiters as a string or array?
2. How do I cleanly tell my program to use the delimiters being passed? Currently my program does the following:

Checks to see if a word ends with any of the delimiters specified. Like:

 if (word.endsWith(".")  || word.endsWith("!")  || word.endsWith("?")) {
           sentenceCount++
 }

But instead I would want it to be something like:

if (word.endsWith(delimitersStringorArray.contains())  {
           sentenceCount++
     }

I hope this makes sense and I can provide any further clarification if necessary. I tried searching but did not find my specific question.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Probably the best is to have as delimiter a String array. That because the method endsWith use a String as a parameter.

The problem is that the actual version of endsWith in the class java.lang.String doesn't accept an array of possible delimiters, but it is possible to create a custom code to do the same like the following:

public class StringUtility {
    public static boolean endsWith(String str, String[] delimiters) {
        for (String delimiter : delimiters) {
            if (str.endsWith(delimiter)) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
}

And to call it use a code like the following

String[] delimiters = { ".", "!", "?" };
if (StringUtility.endsWith("yourWord", delimiters)) {
    // Do something
}

Note that this is a more general code then what you requested because you can check if the passed string ends with delimiters of more than one characters.

Answer 2

If your delimiter is only one character long, you could store the delimiters in a List, then check if the last character of the String is in this list :

List<Character> delimiters = new ArrayList<Character>();
delimiters.add('.'); 
delimiters.add('!');  
delimiters.add('?');  

if(delimiters.contains(word.charAt(word.length() - 1))){

  sentenceCount++;
}