String.split(".") is not splitting my long String

Question

I'm doing the following:

String test = "this is a. example";
String[] test2 = test.split(".");

the problem: test2 has no items. But there are many . in the test String.

Any idea what the problem is?

Answer 1

Note that public String[] split(String regex) takes a regex.

You need to escape the special char ..

Use String[] test2 = test.split("\\.");

Now you're telling Java:

"Don't take . as the special char ., take it as the regular char .".

Note that escaping a regex is done by \, but in Java, \ is written as \\.

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As suggested in the comments by @OldCurmudgeon (+1), you can use public static String quote(String s) that "Returns a literal pattern String for the specified String":

String[] test2 = test.split(Pattern.quote("."));