The string tokenizer class allows an application to break a
string into tokens. The tokenization method is much simpler than
the one used by the StreamTokenizer class. The
StringTokenizer methods do not distinguish among
identifiers, numbers, and quoted strings, nor do they recognize
and skip comments.
The set of delimiters (the characters that separate tokens) may
be specified either at creation time or on a per-token basis.
An instance of StringTokenizer behaves in one of two
ways, depending on whether it was created with the
returnDelims flag having the value true
or false:
- If the flag is
false, delimiter characters serve to
separate tokens. A token is a maximal sequence of consecutive
characters that are not delimiters.
- If the flag is
true, delimiter characters are themselves
considered to be tokens. A token is thus either one delimiter
character, or a maximal sequence of consecutive characters that are
not delimiters.
A StringTokenizer object internally maintains a current
position within the string to be tokenized. Some operations advance this
current position past the characters processed.
A token is returned by taking a substring of the string that was used to
create the StringTokenizer object.
The following is one example of the use of the tokenizer. The code:
StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer("this is a test");
while (st.hasMoreTokens()) {
System.out.println(st.nextToken());
}
prints the following output:
this
is
a
test
StringTokenizer is a legacy class that is retained for
compatibility reasons although its use is discouraged in new code. It is
recommended that anyone seeking this functionality use the split
method of String or the java.util.regex package instead.
The following example illustrates how the String.split
method can be used to break up a string into its basic tokens:
String[] result = "this is a test".split("\\s");
for (int x=0; x<result.length; x++)
System.out.println(result[x]);
prints the following output:
this
is
a
test
author:
unascribed
version:
1.25, 02/02/00
See Also: java.io.StreamTokenizer
since:
JDK1.0 | 