regex - How can I read this string in Java? -

i have string such this: "xxxxxxx , yyyyyyy - zzzzzz" , happens "xxxxxxx - zzzzzz" length of x may vary. want get, x word. there easy way this?

what thought was: iterate through string, append stringbuilder every char read until read ",", break iteration , word, looks pretty messy.

so maybe there easier way this.

here several ways first character:

string str = "x , y - zzzzzz"; system.out.println(str.charat(0)); system.out.println(str.substring(0, 1)); system.out.println(str.replaceall("^(.).*", "$1")); 

see ideone demo

choose 1 more :)

update:

to find first word, may use following regex pattern:

string pattern = "[\\s\\p{p}]+"; 

\s stands whitespace, , \p{p} stands punctuation.

you can use split in

string str = "xxxxxxx , yyyyyyy - zzzzzz"; system.out.println(str.split(pattern)[0]); str = "xxxxxxx - zzzzzz"; system.out.println(str.split(pattern)[0]); str = "xxxxxxx, zzzzzz"; system.out.println(str.split(pattern)[0]); str = "xxxxxxx-zzzzzz"; system.out.println(str.split(pattern)[0]); 

all output xxxxxxx. however, if need restrict punctuation smaller subset, either exclude them in &&[^-] negated subtraction:

[\\s\\p{p}&&[^-]]+ 

or define own range:

[\\s.,;:]+ 

just another demo