Question

I have data that is reliably in this format:

    1. New York Times - USA
    2. Guardian - UK
    3. Le Monde - France

I’m using this code to parse out the newspaper and country values:

    String newspaper = "";
    String country = "";
    int hyphenIndex = unparsedText.indexOf("-");
    if (hyphenIndex > -1)
    {
        newspaper = unparsedText.substring(0, hyphenIndex);
    }
    country = unparsedText.substring(hyphenIndex + 1, unparsedText.length());
    country = country.trim();

But this produces newspaper values of:

    1. New York Times
    2. Guardian
    3. Le Monde

What’s the simplest change to make to end up with newspaper values of:

    New York Times
    Guardian
    Le Monde

Answer 1

Here is a regex based solution:

input.replaceAll("(?m)^\\d+\\.\\s*|\\s*-\\s*.*?$", "");

The regex works in multiline mode (?m) and deletes:

• Leading digit(s) followed by a dot
  followed by any number of space.
• Hyphen followed by anything.

I’m assuming there are no hyphens in the newspaper name.

Code In Action