Java String split()

Syntax of String split()

The syntax of the string split() method is:

string.split(String regex, int limit)

Here, string is an object of the String class.

split() Parameters

The string split() method can take two parameters:

• regex - the string is divided at this regex (can be strings)
• limit (optional) - controls the number of resulting substrings

If the limit parameter is not passed, split() returns all possible substrings.

split() Return Value

• returns an array of substrings

Note: If the regular expression passed to split() is invalid, the split() method raises PatternSyntaxExpression exception.

Example 1: split() Without limit Parameter

Output

result = [a, b, c, d:e]

Here, we split the string at ::. Since the limit parameter is not passed, the returned array contains all the substrings.

split() With limit Parameter

• If the limit parameter is 0 or negative, split() returns an array containing all substrings.
• If the limit parameter is positive (let's say n), split() returns the maximum of n substrings.

Example 2: split() With limit Parameter

Output

result when limit is -2 = [a, bc, de, fg, h]
result when limit is 0 = [a, bc, de, fg, h]
result when limit is 2 = [a, bc:de:fg:h]
result when limit is 4 = [a, bc, de, fg:h]
result when limit is 10 = [a, bc, de, fg, h]

Note: The split() method takes regex as the first argument. If you need to use special characters such as: \, |, ^, *, + etc, you need to escape these characters. For example, we need to use \\+ to split at +.

Example 3: split() at the + character

Output

result = [a, e, f]

Here, to split a string at +, we have used \\+. It's because + is a special character (has a special meaning in regular expressions).