Split function not working properly

Question

I am trying to split the string using Split function in java

String empName=\"employee name | employee Email\";
String[] empDetails=empName.         


        

Answer 1

Try

String[] empDetails=empName.split("\\|");

Answer 2

but my question is why we have to use escape in case of "|" and not for "-"

Because "|" is a regex meta-character. It means "alternation"; e.g. "A|B" means match "A" or "B". If you have problems understanding Java regexes, the javadocs for Pattern describe the complete Java regex syntax.

So when you split on "|" (without the escaping!), you are specifying that the separator is "nothing or nothing", and that matches between each character of the target string.

(For the record, "-" is also a meta-character, but only in a "[..]" character group. In other contexts it doesn't require escaping.)

Answer 3

String#split() method accepts a regex and not a String.

Since | is a meta character, and it's have a special meaning in regex.

It works when you escape that.

String[] empDetails=empName.split("\\|");

Update:

Handling special characters in java:OFFICIAL DOCS.

As a side note:

In java method names starts with small letters.it should be split() not Split() ..not the capital and small s

Answer 4

You should use .split("\\|"); instead of .split("|");