Question

Is C# Split Function different from Java? Why do I get this error when I tried to split the string with a delimiter?

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.util.regex.PatternSyntaxException: Unmatched closing ')'
)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.error(Pattern.java:1924)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Pattern.java:1669)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.<init>(Pattern.java:1337)
    at java.util.regex.Pattern.compile(Pattern.java:1022)
    at java.lang.String.split(String.java:2361)
    at java.lang.String.split(String.java:2403)
... <more stacktrace>

Using this code: (tutorial from String Split)

private String GetAccountID(String xStr)
{
    String oText = xStr;
    String[] oValA = oText.split(")");
    String[] oValB = oValA[0].split("(");

    return oValB[1]; 
}

Sample Values:

AccountID sample values:
      (100) Department
      (100A) Budget
      (12-34F) Others

I want to get 100, 100A, 12-34F from the AccountID.

Sample Usage:

String AccID = GetAccountID(AccountID);

Or do you have another solution for this?

Answer 1

One normally would do it by regex replace/find.

private String getAccountID(String str)
{
    // ^ start, .* any chars, \\( open parenthesis, ([^)]*) no end parenthesis = $1,
    // \\) end parenthesis, .* $ any chars upto end.

    String accountID = str.replaceFirst("^.*\\(([^)]*)\\).*$", "$1");

    // If no matching, accountID == str.
    return accountID == str ? "" : accountID; 
}