I wish to have have the following String
!cmd 45 90 "An argument" Another AndAnother "Another one in quotes"
to become an array of the following
{ "!cmd", "45", "90", "An argument", "Another", "AndAnother", "Another one in quotes" }
I tried
new StringTokenizer(cmd, "\"")
but this would return "Another" and "AndAnother as "Another AndAnother" which is not the desired effect.
Thanks.
EDIT: I have changed the example yet again, this time I believe it explains the situation best although it is no different than the second example.
It's much easier to use a java.util.regex.Matcher
and do a find()
rather than any kind of split
in these kinds of scenario.
That is, instead of defining the pattern for the delimiter between the tokens, you define the pattern for the tokens themselves.
Here's an example:
String text = "1 2 \"333 4\" 55 6 \"77\" 8 999";
// 1 2 "333 4" 55 6 "77" 8 999
String regex = "\"([^\"]*)\"|(\\S+)";
Matcher m = Pattern.compile(regex).matcher(text);
while (m.find()) {
if (m.group(1) != null) {
System.out.println("Quoted [" + m.group(1) + "]");
} else {
System.out.println("Plain [" + m.group(2) + "]");
}
}
The above prints (as seen on ideone.com):
Plain [1]
Plain [2]
Quoted [333 4]
Plain [55]
Plain [6]
Quoted [77]
Plain [8]
Plain [999]
The pattern is essentially:
"([^"]*)"|(\S+)
\_____/ \___/
1 2
There are 2 alternates:
Note that this does not handle escaped double quotes within quoted segments. If you need to do this, then the pattern becomes more complicated, but the Matcher
solution still works.
Note that StringTokenizer
is a legacy class. It's recommended to use java.util.Scanner
or String.split
, or of course java.util.regex.Matcher
for most flexibility.
Do it the old fashioned way. Make a function that looks at each character in a for loop. If the character is a space, take everything up to that (excluding the space) and add it as an entry to the array. Note the position, and do the same again, adding that next part to the array after a space. When a double quote is encountered, mark a boolean named 'inQuote' as true, and ignore spaces when inQuote is true. When you hit quotes when inQuote is true, flag it as false and go back to breaking things up when a space is encountered. You can then extend this as necessary to support escape chars, etc.
Could this be done with a regex? I dont know, I guess. But the whole function would take less to write than this reply did.
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