Splitting strings in Java

Java’s split function packs a powerful punch. You can use it to split string on characters, symbols, substrings, a collection of symbols, or even regular expressions.

public class SplitString {

   public static void main(String[] args) {
       // splitting on a character
       String str = "splitstring";
       String[] t = str.split("t");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting on a substring
       str = "splitstring";
       t = str.split("tst");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting a digit
       str = "split4string";
       t = str.split("4");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting one special symbols
       str = "split$string";
       t = str.split("\\$");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting multiple special symbols
       str = "split$string#on@muliple%speical&symbols";
       t = str.split("[$#@%&]");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting with regular expressions
       str = "split9symbols";
       t = str.split("\\d");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
       
       // splitting with regular expressions
       str = "regular9expression";
       t = str.split("[0-9]+");
       for (String i : t) {
           System.out.print(i + " ");
       }
       System.out.println();
   }
}

output

spli s ring 
spli ring 
split string 
split string 
split string on muliple speical symbols 
split symbols 
regular expression 

• First part of the code splits the string on the character “t”
• Second part splits on the substring “tst”
• Third part splits on the number 4
• Fourth part split on the dollar sign ($). Note the double backslash to escape the character. Similarly use \t for tabs and \n for newline characters.
• Fifth part splits on $, #, @, %, and & symbols. Note the use of square brackets [] to make this possible.
• Sixth part splits on any digit. \d is a regular expression abbreviation for “match any digit”. Note the extra backslash to escape \d.
• Last part also splits on any digit using a regular expression.