Question

i think it is a weird question. So here is my splitting:

String s = "asd#asd";
String[] raw1 = s.split("#"); // this has size of two raw[0] = raw[1] = "asd"

However,

String s = "asd$asd";
String[] raw2 = s.split("$"); // this has size of ONE

raw2 is not splitted. Does anyone know why?

Answer 1

Because split() takes a regexp, and $ indicates the end-of-line. If you need to split on a character that is actually a regexp metacharacter, then you’ll need to escape it.

See Pattern for the regexp metacharacters.

You may find that StringTokenizer is more appropriate for your needs. This will take a list of characters that you should split on, and it won’t interpret them as regular expression metacharacters. However it’s a little more verbose and unweildy to use. As Nandkumar notes below, the latest docs states that it is discouraged in new code.