How do I get what's inbetween “ ” in a user inputted String? Java

Question

I\'d like to retrieve whatever is in quotes that someone enters as a string, i\'m assuming it\'s substring that I need but i\'m not sure how.

When the user inputs a stri

Answer 1

Try the next:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    String input = "\"123\" hey 110 say \"I am not very good at Java\" but \" I can fish pretty well\"";
    int indexQuote = -1;
    boolean number = true;
    String data = "";
    for (int i = 0; i < input.length(); i++) {
        char ch = input.charAt(i);
        if (Character.isWhitespace(ch)) {
            if (data.length() > 0 && indexQuote == -1) {
                if (number) {
                    System.out.println("It's a number: " + data);
                } else {
                    System.out.println("It's a word: " + data);
                }
                // reset vars
                number = true;
                data = "";
            } else if (indexQuote != -1) {
                data += ch;
            }
        } else if (ch == '"') {
            if (indexQuote == -1) {
                number = false;
                indexQuote = i;
            } else {
                System.out.println("It's a quote: " + data);
                // reset vars
                number = true;
                data = "";
                indexQuote = -1;
            }
        } else {
            if (!Character.isDigit(ch)) {
                number = false;
            }
            data += ch;
            if (data.length() > 0 && i == input.length() - 1) {
                if (number) {
                    System.out.println("It's a number: " + data);
                } else {
                    System.out.println("It's a word: " + data);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Output:

It's a word: hey
It's a number: 110
It's a word: say
It's a quote: I am not very good at Java
It's a word: but
It's a quote:  I can fish pretty well

Answer 2

Use StringUtils.subStringBetween

Answer 3

public class MyTestSecond { 
public static void main(String...args){

    String a = "hey 110 say \"I am not very good at Java\"";
    // Method 1
    if(a.contains("\""))
        System.out.println(a.substring(a.indexOf("\""),a.lastIndexOf("\"")+1));
    //Method 2
    String[] array = a.split(" ");
    for(int i=0;i<array.length;i++){
        if(array[i].startsWith("\""))
            System.out.println(a.substring(a.indexOf("\""),a.lastIndexOf("\"")+1));
    }
}

}

Answer 4

I'm not sure if this quite what you are looking for, but it will strip down the quoted parts in steps...

String quote = "I say: \"I have something to say, \"It's better to burn out then fade away\"\" outloud...";

if (quote.contains("\"")) {

    while (quote.contains("\"")) {
        int startIndex = quote.indexOf("\"");
        int endIndex = quote.lastIndexOf("\"");
        quote = quote.substring(startIndex + 1, endIndex);
        System.out.println(quote);
    }

}

Which outputs...

I have something to say, "It's better to burn out then fade away"
It's better to burn out then fade away

Updated

I don't know if this is cheating or not...

String quote = "I say: \"I have something to say, \"It's better to burn out then fade away\"\" outloud...\"Just in case you don't believe me\"";

String[] split = quote.split("\"");
for (String value : split) {
    System.out.println(value);
}

Which outputs...

I say: 
I have something to say, 
It's better to burn out then fade away

 outloud...
Just in case you don't believe me

Updated

Okay, fake String#split

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(quote.length());
for (int index = 0; index < quote.length(); index++) {
    if (quote.charAt(index) == '"') {
        System.out.println(sb);
        sb.delete(0, sb.length());
    } else {
        sb.append(quote.charAt(index));
    }
}

Updated

Okay, this is basically fake split with options...

String quote = "blah blah 123 \"hello\" 234 \"world\"";

boolean quoteOpen = false;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(quote.length());
for (int index = 0; index < quote.length(); index++) {
    if (quote.charAt(index) == '"') {
        if (quoteOpen) {
            System.out.println("Quote: [" + sb.toString() + "]");
            quoteOpen = false;
            sb.delete(0, sb.length());
        } else {
            System.out.println("Text: [" + sb.toString() + "]");
            sb.delete(0, sb.length());
            quoteOpen = true;
        }
    } else {
        sb.append(quote.charAt(index));
    }
}
if (sb.length() > 0) {
    if (quoteOpen) {
        System.out.println("Quote: [" + sb.toString() + "]");
    } else {
        System.out.println("Text: [" + sb.toString() + "]");
    }
}

Which generates...

Text: [blah blah 123 ]
Quote: [hello]
Text: [ 234 ]
Quote: [world]

Know, I don't know how you are storing the results. I would be tempted to create some basic classes which were capable of storing the String results and add them to a List so I could maintain the order and maybe use a flag of some kind to determine what type they are...

Answer 5

public String getNextQuote(int index, String sentence){
 return sentence.substring(sentence.indexOf("\"", index + 1), sentence.indexOf("\"", index + 2));
}

usage: call the method with an index as parameter. This index resembles the index of the last " that you've encountered.

Afterwards, it will return everything between the next two quotes.

Answer 6

Iterate over the string and use a temporary int variable to store when the quoted string started. When you see that it ends, you can extract that substring and do what you want with it.