Question

I have a string in Java like this:

String s = "{{\"2D\", \"array\"}, {\"represented\", \"in a string\"}}"

How can I convert it into an actual array? Like so:

String[][] a = {{"2D", "array"}, {"represented", "in a string"}}

(What I’m looking for is a solution a bit like python’s eval())

Answer 1

I strongly suggest that you use a json capable library to parse your String. However, just for fun, please take a look at the code below, that does the thing you need using only String methods:

String s = "{{\"2D\", \"array\"}, {\"represented\", \"in a string\"}}";
s = s.replace("{", "");
String[] s0 = s.split("},\\s");
int length = s0.length;
String[][] a = new String[length][];
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
    a[i] = s0[i].replace("}", "").split(",\\s");
}