Question

i have a string:

String value = "(name) Says: hello (/name)";

where “name” could also be “lastName”, “address” “postalCode” or many many other things.

i split the string on the “(”
i want to also split on the “)” … however, some strings will only contain the following:

String value = "(name Says: hello (/name)";

my problem is that the string content could also contain “)” and “(” so how would i parse this then? For instance:

String value = "(name Says: can you solve for y = (x-b)? (/name)"; 

the string could also be as follows:

String value = "(name)Says: can you solve for y = (x-b)? (/name)"; 

OR

String value = "(name) Says: can you solve for y = (x-b)?(/name)"; 

OR

String value = "(name)Says: can you solve for y = (x-b)?(/name)"; 

i was initially thinking that i could do a count of how many “)” there are in a string. However, if there are more than 2, i’m not sure what i should do? The reason why i would need to know how many “)” there are in a string is because i want to isolate “name”

any ideas? (i don’t want to use any libraries, just want to come up with the logic )…

Answer 1

The question wasn’t very clear to me. However,as far as I could understand,I guess that you want to capture the name and also the sentence that follows it,both seperately.Please correct me if I am wrong.

Here’s the solution:
1.Parse your String until the first space after “(” .

2.Store it in a temp String. Its length is given by temp.length().

3.So check if temp.charAt(temp.length()-1)==')'.

4.If yes then name would be in the substring temp.substring(1,temp.length()-2).

5.Otherwise it would be in the substring temp.substring(1,temp.length()-1).

6.Now the value after name can be stored in another String until you find "(/".

Hope it helps.