How to isolate a component of a String?

Question

I have a method that returns a String. That string called contact is made of multiple smaller strings. Those smaller strings were parameters to that method.

exemple :

String contact = id + " " + name + " " + telNum;
return contact;

Now I have another method that takes contact as a parameter but that needs to return ONLY name.

So my question is how can I isolate that smaller string name from the whole string contact?

This has obviously been answered multiple times already: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/950409/how-to-parse-this-string-in-java — Christophe Roussy, Mar 31 '16 at 07:00
Possible duplicate of [How to split a string in Java](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3481828/how-to-split-a-string-in-java) — Karl Gjertsen, Mar 31 '16 at 07:03

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 06:57

2

Use

String[] splits = contact.split(" ");
String name = splits[1];

answered Mar 31 '16 at 06:57

Viswanath Lekshmanan

9,945
1
40
64

2

will fail if name contains spaces – MrSimpleMind Mar 31 '16 at 06:58
That is a usecase :p . Should do that logically – Viswanath Lekshmanan Mar 31 '16 at 06:59
1

Thank you that was very helpful. – Charles Bouvier Dondo Mar 31 '16 at 07:39

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 07:01

1

The answer of Viswanath shows how to retrieve the name from the string using string functions.

As an alternative you could consider to create a Contact class which holds the information:

 public class Contact {
     public String id;
     public String name;
     public String tel;

     public String toString() { return id + " " + name + " " + telNum; }
 }

and then pass a Contact object around instead of the string which represents the contact .

answered Mar 31 '16 at 07:01

wero

32,544
3
59
84

Thank you for your suggestion. It is not possible for me to create another class due to restrictions. I appreciate your help. – Charles Bouvier Dondo Mar 31 '16 at 07:40

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 06:58

0

If your ID has only numbers and telephone number is starting with + or any digit then you can easily get name out of it.

answered Mar 31 '16 at 06:58

MDaniyal

1,097
3
13
29

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 07:03

0

String name = contact.substring(contact.indexOf(" ", 0)+1, contact.indexOf(" ", contact.indexOf(" ", 0)+1);

answered Mar 31 '16 at 07:03

Jordy Baylac

510
6
18

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 31 '16 at 07:04

If id and telNum are two integer/long values you can do something like

int startIndex = contact.indexOf(" ");
int endIndex = contact.lastIndexOf(" ");
String name = contact.substring(startIndex, endIndex).trim();

It should be easier if your string has separators, like comma.

Ex.:  String contact = id + ", " + name + ", " + telNum;

In this case you could do the same of above but searching the index of "," or of ", ".

How to isolate a component of a String?

5 Answers5