Question

I have a string like this –

"fruit=apple man=human abc=123"

I want values to be printed like –

fruit=
apple
man=
human
abc=
123

i.e. I also want to see the delimeter values. Currently I’m trying-

String status2="fruit=apple man=human abc=123";
Scanner scn = new Scanner(status2).useDelimiter("[a-z]*=+");
while(scn.hasNext())
{
    System.out.println(scn.next());
    System.out.println(scn.delimiter());
}

But I cannot see the delimeter values

apple 
[a-z]*=+
human 
[a-z]*=+
123
[a-z]*=+

Updated String –

"cobdate=01/28/2013 fundsnotextracted= elapsedtime=00:06:02 user=dataprod starttime=Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:50:30 periods=DAILY, MTD, YTD knowledgedate=01/30/2013:11:50:10 progress=67 statusstep=Generating Reports ....."

Expected output –

cobdate=01/28/2013 
fundsnotextracted= 
elapsedtime=00:06:02 
user=dataprod 
starttime=Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:50:30 
periods=DAILY, MTD, YTD 
knowledgedate=01/30/2013:11:50:10 
progress=67 
statusstep=Generating Reports .....

Answer 1

Your delimiter is not correct. You should set your delimiter after each = sign, and also at every whitespace. You can use this insead: –

Scanner scn = new Scanner(status2).useDelimiter("(?<==)|[ ]");

Here the delimiter is: – empty string following every = denoted by (?<==) or a whitespace denoted by [ ].

---

However, given your input string, and the required output, I would rather split the string, with the same pattern as I used in the delimiter, which will give you an array, that you can also use somewhere else later on: –

String status2="fruit=apple man=human abc=123";
String[] arr = status2.split("(?<==)|[ ]");
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(arr));

---

Update: –

For your updated input, you would have to do some more work. First of all, you strictly need a split here. Plus, you would have to do the split twice – once on a whitespace, and another on a =.

Now, your whitespace must be followed by a sequence of alphabets ending with =, so that you don’t mistakenly split on the whitespace contained in the values. So, your code should look like this: –

String str = "cobdate=01/28/2013 fundsnotextracted= elapsedtime=00:06:02 user=dataprod starttime=Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:50:30 periods=DAILY, MTD, YTD knowledgedate=01/30/2013:11:50:10 progress=67 statusstep=Generating Reports .....";

// Split on a whitespace, followed by a sequence of letters ending with =.
// This ensures that you don't split on whitespace, optionally present in some values
String[] arr = str.split("[ ](?=[a-zA-Z]+=)");

for (String eachString : arr) {
    // Split on empty string following the = sign
    String[] tempArr = eachString.split("(?<==)");

    System.out.print(tempArr[0] + " ");

    // To ensure that you don't print a non-existence value.
    if (tempArr.length == 2) {
        System.out.println(tempArr[1]);
    } else {
        System.out.println();
    }
 }

Output: –

cobdate= 01/28/2013
fundsnotextracted= 
elapsedtime= 00:06:02
user= dataprod
starttime= Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:50:30
periods= DAILY, MTD, YTD
knowledgedate= 01/30/2013:11:50:10
progress= 67
statusstep= Generating Reports ....