String split not returning empty results

Question

I\'m trying to use

\"value1:value2::value3\".split(\":\");

Problem is that I want it to include the blank results.

It returns:

Answer 1

public static void main(String[] args){
  String[] arr = "value1:value2::value3".split(":");
  for(String elm:arr){
    System.out.println("'"+elm+"',");
  }
  System.out.println(arr.length);
}

prints

'value1',
'value2',
'',
'value3',
4

Which is exactly what you want. Your mistake is somewhere else...

Answer 2

split does include empty matches in the result, have a look at the docs here. However, by default, trailing empty strings (those at the end of the array) are discarded. If you want to include these as well, try split(":", -1).

Answer 3

I think that a StringTokenizer might work better for you, YMMV.

Answer 4

That should work but give StringTokenizer a go if you're still having issues.

Answer 5

Use a negative limit in your split statement:

String str = "val1:val2::val3";
String[] st = str.split(":", -1);
for (int i = 0; i< st.length; i++)
    System.out.println(st[i]);

Results:

val1
val2

val3

Answer 6

Works for me.

class t {
    public static void main(String[] _) {
        String t1 = "value1:value2::value3";
        String[] t2 = t1.split(":");
        System.out.println("t2 has "+t2.length+" elements");
        for (String tt : t2) System.out.println("\""+tt+"\"");
    }
}

gives the output

$ java t
t2 has 4 elements
"value1"
"value2"
""
"value3"