CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroid
Aleksandr Strizhevskiy
Aleksandr Strizhevskiy

Reputation: 65

Android String.split("") returning extra element

I am trying to split a word into its individual letters.

I tried both String.split("") and String.split("|") however when I split a word it is creating a extra empty element. Example:

    word = "word";
    int n = word.length();
    Log.i("20",Integer.toString(n));
    String[] letters = word.split("|");
    Log.i("25",Integer.toString(letters.length));

The output in the Android Monitor is:

07-21 15:50:23.084 5711-5711/com.strizhevskiy.movetester I/20: 4
07-21 15:50:23.085 5711-5711/com.strizhevskiy.movetester I/25: 5

I put the individual letters into TextView blocks and I can actually see an extra empty TextView.

When I test these methods in my regular Java it outputs the expected answer: 4.

I am almost tempted to think this is an actual bug in Android's implementation of the method.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 344

Answers (4)

Aleksandr Strizhevskiy
Aleksandr Strizhevskiy

Reputation: 65

Thank you for the suggestions. My current work-around is to use a mock array and copying over into a fresh array using System.arraycopy().

String[] mockLetters = word.split("");
int n = word.length();
String[] letters = new String[n];

System.arraycopy(mockLetters,1,letters,0,n);

I appreciate the suggestions to use toCharArray(). However, these letters then get put into TextViews and TextView doesnt seem to accept char. I could, of coarse, make it work but I've decided to stick with what I currently have.

Tom, in a comment to my question, answered my underlying issue: Why String.split() worked differently in Android than it does in Java?

Apparently the rules for String.split() changed with Java 8.

Upvotes: 1

Divers
Divers

Reputation: 9569

It's hard to say if it's bug or expected behavior, because what are you doing doesn't make sense. You are trying to split string with logical OR (split is waiting for Regular expression, not just a string), so as result it could be different result in Android comparing with normal java, and I don't see there any issue.

Anyway, there is many ways to achieve what you want in a normal way, e.g. just iterating over word by each char in a cycle or just use toCharArray String's method.

Upvotes: 1

Eenvincible
Eenvincible

Reputation: 5626

I am thinking you want to do this:

public Character[] toCharacterArray( String s ) {

   if ( s == null ) {
       return null;
   }

   int len = s.length();
   Character[] array = new Character[len];
   for (int i = 0; i < len ; i++) {
      array[i] = new Character(s.charAt(i));
   }

   return array;
}

Instead of splitting a word without delimiters?

I hope this helps!

Upvotes: 1

Joseph Rosson
Joseph Rosson

Reputation: 354

Try passing a 0 as the limit per the documentation below so that the trailing spaces are discarded.

String[] split (String regex, int limit)

If n is zero then the pattern will be applied as many times as possible, the array can have any length, and trailing empty strings will be discarded.

Upvotes: -1

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