java string regex delimiter

Question

I have very little experience with regex, so thanks in advance.

I have a string like,

Doe Jane, Doe John. The Works of Dr. Suess. Harvard Press(1984).

I am using string.split(regex) to split the string into a String[] based on the regex I supply. I want to split it into authors, title, publication info. The problem is just using [.] breaks it up after Dr. too.

How can I write a regext to include '.' but exclude something like 'Dr.' or 'Mr.' ?

Thanks

If you want to write a general parser for bibliography entries, you'll have to whip up something "smarter" than a regex. Using just a regex means that it will have to account for every possible period-delimited abbreviation, which is basically not feasible. — Matt Ball
– Matt Ball, Commented Feb 7, 2012 at 19:09

NPE · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-07 19:22:23Z

4

I'd recommend using a specialized package for parsing bibliography entries, such as ParsCit.

I've tried their Web interface, and it seems to correctly parse your example out of the box.

With regular expressions, you'll be faced with an uphill struggle in that you'll have to figure out and account for every single possible use of the full stop in a title.

edited Feb 7, 2012 at 19:22

answered Feb 7, 2012 at 19:15

NPE

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flesk · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-07 19:10:34Z

1

You can use negative lookbehind:

(?<!Dr|Mr)\.

answered Feb 7, 2012 at 19:10

flesk

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anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-07 19:12:48Z

1

Use negative lookbehind regex like this:

str.split("(?<!(D|M|J|S)r)\\.\\s*");

Sample Code:

String str="Mr. Doe Jane, Doe John Sr.. The Works of Dr. Suess. Harvard Press(1984).";
String[] arr = str.split("(?<![DMJS]r)\\.\\s*");
for (int i=0; i<arr.length; i++)
    System.out.println(arr[i]);

OUTPUT:

Mr. Doe Jane, Doe John Sr.
The Works of Dr. Suess
Harvard Press(1984)

answered Feb 7, 2012 at 19:12

anubhava

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Eugene · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-07 19:17:14Z

0

This has to use some sort of negative lookbehind, like in this sample:

String input = "Doe Jane, Doe John. The Works of Dr. Suess. Harvard Press(1984)";
String [] tokens = input.split("(?<!Dr|Mr)\\.");
for(String token : tokens){
        // this will output3 tokens
    System.out.println(token);
}

What this says is split on . (dot), BUT the thing that comes behind (?< sign) this dot has to be different (! sign) then Dr or (| sign) Mr

Cheers, Eugene.

answered Feb 7, 2012 at 19:17

Eugene

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