Remove all punctuation from a string?

[cherrychives]

I need to convert a string of several words/symbols into several seperate strings comprising only lower case letters.

At the moment I am using string tokenizer class and the replaceAll method:

while(string.hasMoreTokens()){
	word = string.nextToken().toLowerCase().replaceAll("[^a-z]", "");
	System.out.print(word + " ");
}

For example, if string was:

The boys ring the old lady's bell. Ding, dong!Then they run off so she cannot see them.

..output should be:

the boys ring the old lady s bell ding dong then they run off so she cannot see them

..but I am getting:

the boys ring the old ladys bell ding dongthen they run off so she cannot see them


Any advice is appreciated.

[Fubarable]

I would not use a String tokenizer but simply use String#replaceAll(...). I would use a greedy quantifier that takes all non-character Strings, and replaces it with a space.

[JosAH]

I would not use a String tokenizer but simply use String#replaceAll(...). I would use a greedy quantifier that takes all non-character Strings, and replaces it with a space.

And in a second pass I'd replace multiple spaces by a single space character.

kind regards,

Jos

[Fubarable]

And in a second pass I'd replace multiple spaces by a single space character.

I don't think that there's a need to do that since the greedy quantifier should grab all spaces and replace with a single space on the first pass.

[JosAH]

I don't think that there's a need to do that since the greedy quantifier should grab all spaces and replace with a single space on the first pass.

Yes, o course; I misread your answer (it's Sunday) and I immediately put on my Mr-Wise-Guy hat and posted my reply; sorry about that; I'm sitting in the sun with my laptop right now and I can hardly read what is displayed on that shiny schreen. I liked those dim screens much better ...

kind regards,

Jos

[Ksharp]

Maybe you need two replaceAll() . First is for lady's , Second is for another non-alpha character.

[JosAH]

Maybe you need two replaceAll() . First is for lady's , Second is for another non-alpha character.

That is not neeed (as Fubarable already correctly pointed out above); a single replacement can do the job:

String result= yourString.toLowerCase().replaceAll("[^a-z]+", " ");

kind regards,

Jos

[Ksharp]

Sorry. Misunderstanding.
I took the output OP want as the wrong output. I think I am old now. :(