How to split a string, but also keep the delimiters?

Question

I have a multiline string which is delimited by a set of different delimiters:

(Text1)(DelimiterA)(Text2)(DelimiterC)(Text3)(DelimiterB)(Text4)

Answer 1

Another candidate solution using a regex. Retains token order, correctly matches multiple tokens of the same type in a row. The downside is that the regex is kind of nasty.

package javaapplication2;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class JavaApplication2 {

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String num = "58.5+variable-+98*78/96+a/78.7-3443*12-3";

        // Terrifying regex:
        //  (a)|(b)|(c) match a or b or c
        // where
        //   (a) is one or more digits optionally followed by a decimal point
        //       followed by one or more digits: (\d+(\.\d+)?)
        //   (b) is one of the set + * / - occurring once: ([+*/-])
        //   (c) is a sequence of one or more lowercase latin letter: ([a-z]+)
        Pattern tokenPattern = Pattern.compile("(\\d+(\\.\\d+)?)|([+*/-])|([a-z]+)");
        Matcher tokenMatcher = tokenPattern.matcher(num);

        List tokens = new ArrayList<>();

        while (!tokenMatcher.hitEnd()) {
            if (tokenMatcher.find()) {
                tokens.add(tokenMatcher.group());
            } else {
                // report error
                break;
            }
        }

        System.out.println(tokens);
    }
}

Sample output:

[58.5, +, variable, -, +, 98, *, 78, /, 96, +, a, /, 78.7, -, 3443, *, 12, -, 3]