String delimiter in string.split method

There is no need to set the delimiter by breaking it up in pieces like you have done.

Here is a complete program you can compile and run:

import java.util.Arrays;
public class SplitExample {
    public static final String PLAYER = "1||1||Abdul-Jabbar||Karim||1996||1974";
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String[] data = PLAYER.split("\\|\\|");
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(data));
    }
}

If you want to use split with a pattern, you can use Pattern.compile or Pattern.quote.

To see compile and quote in action, here is an example using all three approaches:

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class SplitExample {
    public static final String PLAYER = "1||1||Abdul-Jabbar||Karim||1996||1974";
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String[] data = PLAYER.split("\\|\\|");
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(data));

        Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile("\\|\\|");
        data = pattern.split(PLAYER);
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(data));

        pattern = Pattern.compile(Pattern.quote("||"));
        data = pattern.split(PLAYER);
        System.out.println(Arrays.toString(data));
    }
}

The use of patterns is recommended if you are going to split often using the same pattern. BTW the output is:

[1, 1, Abdul-Jabbar, Karim, 1996, 1974]
[1, 1, Abdul-Jabbar, Karim, 1996, 1974]
[1, 1, Abdul-Jabbar, Karim, 1996, 1974]

Use the Pattern#quote() method for escaping ||. Try:

final String[] tokens = myString.split(Pattern.quote("||"));

This is required because | is an alternation character and hence gains a special meaning when passed to split call (basically the argument to split is a regular expression in string form).

Double quotes are interpreted as literals in regex; they are not special characters. You are trying to match a literal "||".

Just use Pattern.quote(delimiter):

As requested, here's a line of code (same as Sanjay's)

final String[] tokens = line.split(Pattern.quote(delimiter));

If that doesn't work, you're not passing in the correct delimiter.

String delimiter in string.split method

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