Split String by XML tags in Java

Question

I want to write a method in Java that splits a String by XML tags like follows:

"Lorem ipsum <b>dolor</b> sit amet consetetur <b>diam</b> nonumy."

Should return the Array:

["Lorem ipsum ", "<b>dolor</b>", " sit amet consetetur ", "<b>diam</b>", " nonumy."]

This should work for every XML tag, also self closing tags like <element />.

Is there a library that does something similar in a simple way?

Thanks!

Sabuj Hassan · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-12 16:24:37Z

1

Using lookaround in your split should do the trick:

String splits[] = input.split("\\s+(?=<b>)|(?<=</b>)\\s+");

Example:

String input = "Lorem ipsum <b>dolor</b> sit amet consetetur <b>diam</b> nonumy.";
for(String s : input.split("\\s+(?=<b>)|(?<=</b>)\\s+")){
    System.out.println(s);
}

If you want to keep the space intact in your spitted array, then remove the \\s+ from the regex.

answered Mar 12, 2014 at 16:24

Sabuj Hassan

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4 Comments

Robert Over a year ago

Great! As a follow-up question: do you know a generic regexp for every XML tag I can use? I can not know which tags will come. The regexp should also match self closing tags like <element/> and with attributes too.

Sabuj Hassan Over a year ago

Variable tags will not work as lookbehind(<=...) only supports a fixed length.

Robert Over a year ago

I have solved that with an interval (?=<mynamespace:.*?>)|(?<=</mynamespace:.{1,20}>).

Robert Over a year ago

Ok, and with self closing tags the regex look as follows: ((?=<mynamespace:.*?>)|(?<=</mynamespace:.{1,20}>))|((?=<mynamespace:.*?)|(?<=/>)).

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