How do I derive specific data from a string using the Java standard API?

Question

I have the following pattern:

Jan(COMPANY) &^% Feb(ASP) 567 Mar(INC) 

I want the final output to be:

String[] one = {"Jan", "Feb", "Mar"};
String[] two = {"COMPANY","ASP","INC"};

Please help. Anyone!!?

Answer 1

A complete example that stores the results in String[] one and String[] two would look like this:

import java.util.*;
import java.util.regex.*;

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String str = "Jan(COMPANY) &^% Feb(ASP) 567 Mar(INC)";

        ArrayList<String> monthArr = new ArrayList<String>();
        ArrayList<String> dataArr  = new ArrayList<String>();

        // Part 1: \\b(\\p{Alpha}+): Word boundary, one or more characters
        // Part 2: \\(([^)]+)\\): "(", anything but ")" one or more times, ")" 
        Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\b(\\p{Alpha}+)\\(([^)]+)\\)");
        Matcher m = p.matcher(str);

        while (m.find()) {
            monthArr.add(m.group(1));  // m.group(1) = "Jan", "Feb" and so on
            dataArr.add(m.group(2));   // m.group(2) = "COMPANY, "ASP", and so on
        }

        String[] one = monthArr.toArray(new String[0]);
        String[] two = dataArr.toArray(new String[0]);
    }
}

Answer 2

Iterate across the characters in the string and store what you need.

String s = "Jan(COMPANY) &^% Feb(ASP) 567 Mar(INC)";

ArrayList<String> monthsList = new ArrayList<String>();
ArrayList<String> companyList = new ArrayList<String>();

StringBuilder b = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
    char c = s.charAt(i);

    switch (c) {

    case ' ':
        b.setLength(0);
        break;
    case '(':
        monthsList.add(b.toString());
        b.setLength(0);
        break;
    case ')':
        companyList.add(b.toString());
        b.setLength(0);
        break;
    default:
        b.append(c);
        break;
    }
}

String[] monthArray = monthsList.toArray(new String[] {});
String[] companyArray = companyList.toArray(new String[] {});