Splitting a string into words and punctuation with java

Question

I'm trying to split a string up into words and punctuation, adding the punctuation to the list produced by the split.

For instance: String c = "help, me!"

I want out the list to look like is:

['help', ',', 'me', '!']

So, I want the string split at whitespace with the punctuation split from the words. Do you have ideas how to do it?

Answer 1

Try this

String str = "help, me!";
        StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(str, ", !", true);
        while (st.hasMoreElements()) {
            System.out.println(st.nextElement());;
        }

Output:

help
,
   <- space
me
!

Answer 2

You can do it using regex as follows:

String d = Str.split("\\W+");

Updated answer for your question:

String d = Str.split("\\b");