Java - splitting text into array without obvious delimiter

It seems to be the old old fixed position format. It was very popular in the days of reading punch cards.

So, basically, you read this file line by line and then:

String name = line.substring(0,17).trim();
String location = line.substring(17,33).trim();

String[] scores = new String[4];
scores[0] = line.substring(33,38);
scores[1] = line.substring(38,44);
scores[2] = line.substring(44,49);
scores[3] = line.substring(49,54);

      

        
        
        
      

    

Then you can go ahead and split the name by space, location by ,

, convert scores to numbers, etc.

If you want to make all of the above more general, you can prepare a list of indices and create an array based on those indices:

int[] fieldIndexes = { 0, 17,33,38,44,49,54 };
String values[] = new String[fieldIndexes.length - 1];

      

        
        
        
      

    

And then in your read loop (again, I'm assuming you read line in line

):

for ( int i = 1; i < fieldIndexes.length; i++ ) {

     values[i-1] = line.substring(fieldIndexes[i-1],fieldIndexes[i]).trim();

}

      

        
        
        
      

    

And then go to work with the array values

.

Of course, make sure that every line you read has the appropriate number of characters, etc., to avoid limit issues.

Why don't you split by index? The coordinates are tricky, but if you always have two numbers after the decimal points, then this example might help.

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.FileReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;


public class Split {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        List<Person> lst = new ArrayList<Split.Person>();

        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("c:\\test\\file.txt"));

        try {
            String line = null;

            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

                Person p = new Person();

                String[] name = line.substring(0,17).split(" ");
                String[] city = line.substring(17,33).split(" ");

                p.setName(name[0].trim());
                p.setLastname(name[1].trim());
                p.setCity(city[0].replace(",","").trim());
                p.setState(city[1].replace(",","").trim());

                String[] coordinates = new String[4];
                String coor = line.substring(33);

                String first = coor.substring(0, coor.indexOf(".") + 3);

                coor = coor.substring(first.length());

                String second = coor.substring(0, coor.indexOf(".") + 3);

                coor = coor.substring(second.length());

                String third = coor.substring(0, coor.indexOf(".") + 3);

                coor = coor.substring(third.length());

                String fourth = coor.substring(0, coor.indexOf(".") + 3);

                coordinates[0] = first;
                coordinates[1] = second;
                coordinates[2] = third;
                coordinates[3] = fourth;

                p.setCoordinates(coordinates);

                lst.add(p);
            }

        } finally {
            br.close();
        }

        for(Person p : lst){
            System.out.println(p.getName());
            System.out.println(p.getLastname());
            System.out.println(p.getCity());
            System.out.println(p.getState());
            for(String s : p.getCoordinates()){
                System.out.println(s);
            }

            System.out.println();
        }
    }

    public static class Person {

        public Person(){}

        private String name;
        private String lastname;
        private String city;
        private String state;
        private String[] coordinates;
        public String getName() {
            return name;
        }
        public void setName(String name) {
            this.name = name;
        }
        public String getLastname() {
            return lastname;
        }
        public void setLastname(String lastname) {
            this.lastname = lastname;
        }
        public String getCity() {
            return city;
        }
        public void setCity(String city) {
            this.city = city;
        }
        public String getState() {
            return state;
        }
        public void setState(String state) {
            this.state = state;
        }
        public String[] getCoordinates() {
            return coordinates;
        }
        public void setCoordinates(String[] coordinates) {
            this.coordinates = coordinates;
        }
    }

}