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Asked: 2026-05-13T21:58:30+00:00

What is the best way to extract each field from each line where there

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What is the best way to extract each field from each line where there is no clear separator (deliminator) between each field?

Here is a sample of the lines I need to extract its fields:

3/3/2010 11:00:46 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:04:04 AM 2, YaserAlNaqeb      BASEMENT-OUT         
3/3/2010 11:04:06 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:04:18 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:14:32 AM 4, Dhileep              BASEMENT-OUT         
3/3/2010 11:14:34 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:14:41 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:15:33 AM 4, Dhileep           BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:15:42 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:15:42 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:30:22 AM 34, KumarRaju        BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:31:28 AM 39, Eldrin           BASEMENT-OUT         
3/3/2010 11:31:31 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:31:39 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:32:38 AM 39, Eldrin           BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:32:47 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:32:47 AM                      BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:33:26 AM 34, KumarRaju        BASEMENT-OUT         
3/3/2010 11:33:28 AM                      BASEMENT-IN

There are 6 fields in each line and some of them can be empty. What is the best way to approach this problem?

  • I’m using Java

Edition 01

  • Field 5 can be empty (however its existence should be recognized in all cases)
  • Amount of spaces can change
  • Last word can change
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To me there seem to be 3 meta-fields:

    3/3/2010 11:32:38 AM 39, Eldrin           BASEMENT-IN          
3/3/2010 11:32:47 AM                      BASEMENT-IN

    MF1: 3/3/2010 11:32:38 AM

    MF2: 39, Eldrin

    MF3: BASEMENT-IN

    of which MF2 is optional. My delimiters then would be:

    MF1 up to and including [AM|PM]

    MF2 number,anything except BASEMENT-*

    MF3 BASEMENT-*

    I’m not all that good at regexes but I would extract those 3 groups as something like

    (anything)(AM|PM)(number,anything)?(BASEMENT-anything)

    where the ? means optional group.

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