String from BufferedReader not splitting?

Question

Right now I'm programming a little chat history plugin for a game, in which I want to save all messages and the time it was sent in a file, which is working perfectly, but when reading it I'm getting a little problem. variables: history = new HashMap<Date, String>(); This is how I load the messages:

public static void load(){
    File f = new File(config.getString("file"));
    if (!f.exists()){
        try {
            f.createNewFile();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
    try{
        BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(f));
        String line;
        while ((line = br.readLine())!=null){
            String date = line.split(" ")[0];
            for (int i = 0; i < line.split(" ").length; i++){
                System.out.print(i+"="+line.split(" ")[i]+" ");
            }
            if (date.split(",")[0].split(".").length == 0) continue;
            line = line.replaceAll(date+" ", "");
            history.put(fromString(date), line);
        }
        br.close();
    }catch(IOException e){
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

This is what I have written in the file:

09.01.17,18:45:26 §6[RoflFrankoc] §cHi
09.01.17,18:45:30 §6[RoflFrankoc] §cHello world

Now my problem: The line if (date.split(",")[0].split(".").length == 0) continue; is stopping the lines from getting added to history. Without it I get an ArrayOutOfBoundsError: 0. with these lines

for (int i = 0; i < line.split(" ").length; i++){
    System.out.print(i+"="+line.split(" ")[i]+" ");
}

I'm checking if it's reading correctly, which yes it is, output:

0=09.01.17,18:45:30
1=§6[RoflFrankoc]
2=§cHello
3=world
0=09.01.17,18:45:26
1=§6[RoflFrankoc]
2=§cHi

(The §c's and §6's are color codes in the API, I'm using the SpigotAPI for Minecraft)

`createNewFile()` is pointless. Just catch the `FileNotFoundException`. — user207421, Jan 09 '17 at 18:23

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 09 '17 at 18:20

The character . is a special character, if you want to split your String using a dot as separator, you need to escape it with 2 backslashes as next:

if (date.split(",")[0].split("\\.").length == 0) continue;

Indeed keep in mind that the method split(String regex) expects a regular expression as argument.

String from BufferedReader not splitting?

1 Answers1