I use this regex to split a string at every say 3rd position:
String []thisCombo2 = thisCombo.split("(?<=\\G...)");
where the 3 dots after the G indicates every nth position to split. In this case, the 3 dots indicate every 3 positions. An example:
Input: String st = "123124125134135145234235245"
Output: 123 124 125 134 135 145 234 235 245.
My question is, how do i let the user control the number of positions where the string must be split at? In other words, how do I make those 3 dots, n dots controlled by the user?
For a big performance improvement, an alternative would be to use substring()
in a loop:
public String[] splitStringEvery(String s, int interval) {
int arrayLength = (int) Math.ceil(((s.length() / (double)interval)));
String[] result = new String[arrayLength];
int j = 0;
int lastIndex = result.length - 1;
for (int i = 0; i < lastIndex; i++) {
result[i] = s.substring(j, j + interval);
j += interval;
} //Add the last bit
result[lastIndex] = s.substring(j);
return result;
}
Example:
Input: String st = "1231241251341351452342352456"
Output: 123 124 125 134 135 145 234 235 245 6.
It's not as short as stevevls' solution, but it's way more efficient (see below) and I think it would be easier to adjust in the future, of course depending on your situation.
Performance tests (Java 7u45)
2,000 characters long string - interval is 3.
split("(?<=\\G.{" + count + "})")
performance (in miliseconds):
7, 7, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2
splitStringEvery()
(substring()
) performance (in miliseconds):
2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0
2,000,000 characters long string - interval is 3.
split()
performance (in miliseconds):
207, 95, 376, 87, 97, 83, 83, 82, 81, 83
splitStringEvery()
performance (in miliseconds):
44, 20, 13, 24, 13, 26, 12, 38, 12, 13
2,000,000 characters long string - interval is 30.
split()
performance (in miliseconds):
103, 61, 41, 55, 43, 44, 49, 47, 47, 45
splitStringEvery()
performance (in miliseconds):
7, 7, 2, 5, 1, 3, 4, 4, 2, 1
Conclusion:
The splitStringEvery()
method is a lot faster (even after the changes in Java 7u6), and it escalates when the intervals become higher.
Ready-to-use Test Code:
pastebin.com/QMPgLbG9
You can use the brace operator to specify the number of times a character must occur:
String []thisCombo2 = thisCombo.split("(?<=\\G.{" + count + "})");
The brace is a handy tool because you can use it to specify either an exact count or ranges.
Using Google Guava, you can use Splitter.fixedLength()
Returns a splitter that divides strings into pieces of the given length
Splitter.fixedLength(2).split("abcde");
// returns an iterable containing ["ab", "cd", "e"].
If you want to build that regex string you can set the split length as a parameter.
public String getRegex(int splitLength)
{
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < splitLength; i++)
builder.append(".");
return "(?<=\\G" + builder.toString() +")";
}
private String[] StringSpliter(String OriginalString) {
String newString = "";
for (String s: OriginalString.split("(?<=\\G.{"nth position"})")) {
if(s.length()<3)
newString += s +"/";
else
newString += StringSpliter(s) ;
}
return newString.split("/");
}