Java StringTokenizer.nextToken() skips over empty fields

Question

I am using a tab (/t) as delimiter and I know there are some empty fields in my data e.g.:

one->two->->three

Where -> equals the tab. As you can see an empty field is still correctly surrounded by tabs. Data is collected using a loop :

 while ((strLine = br.readLine()) != null) {
    StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(strLine, "\t");
    String test = st.nextToken();
    ...
    }

Yet Java ignores this "empty string" and skips the field.

Is there a way to circumvent this behaviour and force java to read in empty fields anyway?

Answer 1

There is a RFE in the Sun's bug database about this StringTokenizer issue with a status Will not fix.

The evaluation of this RFE states, I quote:

With the addition of the java.util.regex package in 1.4.0, we have basically obsoleted the need for StringTokenizer. We won't remove the class for compatibility reasons. But regex gives you simply what you need.

And then suggests using String#split(String) method.

Answer 2

Thank you at all. Due to the first comment I was able to find a solution: Yes you are right, thank you for your reference:

 Scanner s = new Scanner(new File("data.txt"));
 while (s.hasNextLine()) {
      String line = s.nextLine();
      String[] items= line.split("\t", -1);
      System.out.println(items[5]);
      //System.out.println(Arrays.toString(cols));
 }