What is the simplest way to get the last word of a string in Java? You can assume no punctuation (just alphabetic characters and whitespace).
-
related: stackoverflow.com/questions/1181969/…GreenMatt– GreenMatt2011-01-12 19:03:50 +00:00Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 19:03
-
3Title says "fastest", questions asks for "simplest". Please clarify.Mark Bolusmjak– Mark Bolusmjak2011-01-12 20:42:35 +00:00Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 20:42
-
1Fastest and simplest for coding and reading. Execution time is irrelevant. As an aside, having different wording is better for search purposes although the discrepancy was unintentional.Muhd– Muhd2011-01-12 21:49:33 +00:00Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 21:49
Add a comment
|
7 Answers
String test = "This is a sentence";
String lastWord = test.substring(test.lastIndexOf(" ")+1);
4 Comments
moinudin
Needs a +1 there and fails on a single word.
Muhd
One line is nice since I will be using it in Velocity template code. Could be combined with a regular expession to account for other characters like JST's solution.
Muhd
Actually this is better, it already accounts for a single word: String lastWord = test.substring(test.lastIndexOf(" ")+1);
Zippp
what if a sentence has some punctuation at the end? "This is a sentence?!"
String testString = "This is a sentence";
String[] parts = testString.split(" ");
String lastWord = parts[parts.length - 1];
System.out.println(lastWord); // "sentence"
7 Comments
Muhd
This is the solution I probably would have come up with on my own, not bad, but a one-liner would be better.
Dave McClelland
When you say "fastest," do you mean shortest in code or fastest to execute? This could be made into a one liner, but it wouldn't execute any faster and would be much harder to read.
Muhd
I did not say "fastest", I said "simplest", by which I meant a combination of brevity and ease of understanding.
Dave McClelland
@Muhd If it were me, I would think the above is easiest to read. Then again, this is also the solution I immediately came up with. @OscarRyz's solution is also simple to read, so it comes down to personal preference.
OscarRyz
@Dave Probably mine, is not easier to read anymore for I have added a check in case the string it self is the last word.
|
Here is a way to do it using String's built-in regex capabilities:
String lastWord = sentence.replaceAll("^.*?(\\w+)\\W*$", "$1");
The idea is to match the whole string from ^ to $, capture the last sequence of \w+ in a capturing group 1, and replace the whole sentence with it using $1.
answered Jan 13, 2016 at 11:54
Sergey Kalinichenko
729k85 gold badges1.2k silver badges1.6k bronze badges
3 Comments
Wesos de Queso
This one is solid gold
prettyvoid
Neat because it's a one liner
CeePlusPlus
Edge case: This fails in right-to-left languages (ex. Hebrew). @OscarRyz substring method still works. ideone.com/MacH0s
If other whitespace characters are possible, then you'd want:
testString.split("\\s+");
Comments
You can do that with StringUtils (from Apache Commons Lang). It avoids index-magic, so it's easier to understand. Unfortunately substringAfterLast returns empty string when there is no separator in the input string so we need the if statement for that case.
public static String getLastWord(String input) {
String wordSeparator = " ";
boolean inputIsOnlyOneWord = !StringUtils.contains(input, wordSeparator);
if (inputIsOnlyOneWord) {
return input;
}
return StringUtils.substringAfterLast(input, wordSeparator);
}
Comments
Get the last word in Kotlin:
String.substringAfterLast(" ")
Comments
String s="print last word";
x:for(int i=s.length()-1;i>=0;i--) {
if(s.charAt(i)==' ') {
for(int j=i+1;j<s.length();j++) {
System.out.print(s.charAt(j));
}
break x;
}
}
1 Comment
Community
Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.