How to convert comma-separated String to List?

Question

Is there any built-in method in Java which allows us to convert comma separated String to some container (e.g array, List or Vector)? Or do I need to write custom code for t

Answer 1

You can use Guava to split the string, and convert it into an ArrayList. This works with an empty string as well, and returns an empty list.

import com.google.common.base.Splitter;
import com.google.common.collect.Lists;

String commaSeparated = "item1 , item2 , item3";

// Split string into list, trimming each item and removing empty items
ArrayList list = Lists.newArrayList(Splitter.on(',').trimResults().omitEmptyStrings().splitToList(commaSeparated));
System.out.println(list);

list.add("another item");
System.out.println(list);

outputs the following:

[item1, item2, item3]
[item1, item2, item3, another item]