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Java Java Data Structures Organizing Data Splitting Strings

Posted by Jess Sanders
Jess Sanders
12,086 Points

Using strings to split strings

I want to split a string at every instance of two strings that appear within it.

In other words, if I have the string,

 "<div class="content-block">
            <div class="grid-70 tablet-grid-70 mobile-grid-70 content-meta">
              <strong>Achievement</strong>
              <h3>How Ruby Works</h3>
              <p>Ruby Basics</p>
              <div class="content-actions-container">
                <span class="icon icon-complete"></span>
                <strong>Achieved</strong>
                <p>Mar 18, 2015</p>
              </div>
            </div>"

and, I want to split at every instance of 

"</strong>
                <p>"

and 

"</strong>
              <h3>"

How do I do that?

2 Answers

ellie adam
ellie adam
26,377 Points

We always learn from our mistakes :)

Adiv Abramson
Adiv Abramson
6,919 Points
Adiv Abramson
Adiv Abramson
6,919 Points

Seem like you want to split the input text on </strong> followed by a zero or more space characters such as newline, tab, blanks and then either a <p> tag or an <h3> tag.

I think the code below might help. The regex pattern for splitting the input string consists of the HTML tag literal "</strong>" followed by the escaped character class \s (space characters) with the * quantifier (zero or more instances of preceding token) followed by either a <p> or a <h3> HTML literal.

String strpattern = "</strong>\\s*(<p>|<h3>)";
        Pattern objPattern = Pattern.compile(strpattern);
        String[] arMatches = objPattern.split(txtinput);

        if (arMatches.length != 0 ) {
            int matchcount = 0;
           System.out.println("arMatches.length = " + arMatches.length);
           for (String element : arMatches) {
               System.out.println("Match #" + matchcount);
               System.out.println(element + "\n\n\n");
               matchcount++;
           }//for
        } else {
            System.out.println("Could not split input.");
        }//if

Below are the results I obtained:

arMatches.length = 3
Match #0
<div class="content-block">
<div class="grid-70 tablet-grid-70 mobile-grid-70 content-meta">
<strong>Achievement



Match #1
How Ruby Works</h3>
<p>Ruby Basics</p>
<div class="content-actions-container">
<span class="icon icon-complete"></span>
<strong>Achieved



Match #2
Mar 18, 2015</p>
</div>
</div>