How do I split a string in Java?

There are only two methods you really need to consider.

Use String.split for a one-character delimiter or you don't care about performance

If performance is not an issue, or if the delimiter is a single character that is not a regular expression special character (i.e., not one of .$|()[{^?*+\) then you can use String.split.

String[] results = input.split(",");

The split method has an optimization to avoid using a regular expression if the delimeter is a single character and not in the above list. Otherwise, it has to compile a regular expression, and this is not ideal.

Use Pattern.split and precompile the pattern if using a complex delimiter and you care about performance.

If performance is an issue, and your delimiter is not one of the above, you should pre-compile a regular expression pattern which you can then reuse.

// Save this somewhere
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("[,;:]");

/// ... later
String[] results = pattern.split(input);

This last option still creates a new Matcher object. You can also cache this object and reset it for each input for maximum performance, but that is somewhat more complicated and not thread-safe.

import java.io.*;

public class BreakString {

  public static void main(String args[]) {

    String string = "004-034556-1234-2341";
    String[] parts = string.split("-");

    for(int i=0;i<parts.length;i++) ｛
      System.out.println(parts[i]);
    }
  }
}

I just wanted to write an algorithm instead of using Java built-in functions:

public static List<String> split(String str, char c){
    List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++){
        if(str.charAt(i) != c){
            sb.append(str.charAt(i));
        }
        else{
            if(sb.length() > 0){
                list.add(sb.toString());
                sb = new StringBuilder();
            }
        }
    }

    if(sb.length() >0){
        list.add(sb.toString());
    }
    return list;
}

You can use the method split:

public class Demo {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        String str = "004-034556";

        if ((str.contains("-"))) {
            String[] temp = str.split("-");
            for (String part:temp) {
                System.out.println(part);
            }
        }
        else {
            System.out.println(str + " does not contain \"-\".");
        }
    }
}

String s = "TnGeneral|DOMESTIC";
String a[]=s.split("\\|");
System.out.println(a.toString());
System.out.println(a[0]);
System.out.println(a[1]);

Output:

TnGeneral
DOMESTIC

 String string = "004^034556-34";
 String[] parts = string.split(Pattern.quote("^"));

If you have a special character then you can use Patter.quote. If you simply have dash (-) then you can shorten the code:

 String string = "004-34";
 String[] parts = string.split("-");

If you try to add other special character in place of dash (^) then the error will generate ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException. For that you have to use Pattern.quote.

I used a string called stringValue and is in the form of something like this "Those who had coins, enjoyed in the rain, those who had notes were busy looking for the shelter".

I will split up the stringValue using the "," as the colon.

And then I would simply like to SetText() of three different TextViews to display that string.

String stringValue = "Those who had coins, enjoyed in the rain, those who had notes were busy looking for the shelter";
String ValueSplitByColon[] = stringValue.split(",");

String firstValue = ValueSplitByColon[0];
String secondValue = ValueSplitByColon[1];
String thirdValue = ValueSplitByColon[2];

txtV1.setText(firstValue);
txtV2.setText(secondValue;
txtV3.setText(thirdValue;

It gives the output as:

1. The txtV1 value is: Those who had coins

2. The txtV2 value is: enjoyed in the rain

3. The txtV3 value is: those who had notes were busy looking for the shelter

If you are validating for alphanumeric then change the regex to [A-Za-z0-9]+-[A-Za-z0-9]+

    public static final Pattern VALIDATE_PATTERN = Pattern.compile("[0-9]+-[0-9]+");

public static String[] validateString(String str) {
    if(VALIDATE_PATTERN.matcher(str).find()) {
        String[] output = str.split("-");
        if(output.length != 2) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Invalid string format");
        }
        return output;
    } else {
        throw new RuntimeException("Invalid string format");
    }
}

Splitting and then printing string by using stream

String input = "004-034556";
Stream<String> stream = Arrays.stream(input.split( "-" ));
stream.forEach(System.out::println);

Using Pattern is java8 below is the way!!

package com.company;

import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class umeshtest {

    public static void main(String a[]) {
        String ss = "I'm Testing and testing the new feature";
        Pattern.compile(" ").splitAsStream(ss).forEach(s -> System.out.println(s));
    }
}

I looked at all the answers and noticed that all are either 3rd party-licenced or regex-based.

Here is a good dumb implementation I use:

/**
 * Separates a string into pieces using
 * case-sensitive-non-regex-char-separators.
 * <p>
 * &nbsp;&nbsp;<code>separate("12-34", '-') = "12", "34"</code><br>
 * &nbsp;&nbsp;<code>separate("a-b-", '-') = "a", "b", ""</code>
 * <p>
 * When the separator is the first character in the string, the first result is
 * an empty string. When the separator is the last character in the string the
 * last element will be an empty string. One separator after another in the
 * string will create an empty.
 * <p>
 * If no separators are set the source is returned.
 * <p>
 * This method is very fast, but it does not focus on memory-efficiency. The memory
 * consumption is approximately double the size of the string. This method is
 * thread-safe but not synchronized.
 *
 * @param source    The string to split, never <code>null</code>.
 * @param separator The character to use as splitting.
 * @return The mutable array of pieces.
 * @throws NullPointerException When the source or separators are <code>null</code>.
 */
public final static String[] separate(String source, char... separator) throws NullPointerException {
    String[] resultArray = {};
    boolean multiSeparators = separator.length > 1;
    if (!multiSeparators) {
        if (separator.length == 0) {
            return new String[] { source };
        }
    }
    int charIndex = source.length();
    int lastSeparator = source.length();
    while (charIndex-- > -1) {
        if (charIndex < 0 || (multiSeparators ? Arrays.binarySearch(separator, source.charAt(charIndex)) >= 0 : source.charAt(charIndex) == separator[0])) {
            String piece = source.substring(charIndex + 1, lastSeparator);
            lastSeparator = charIndex;
            String[] tmp = new String[resultArray.length + 1];
            System.arraycopy(resultArray, 0, tmp, 1, resultArray.length);
            tmp[0] = piece;
            resultArray = tmp;
        }
    }
    return resultArray;
}