What's the Best Way to Build a String of Delimited Items in Java

What's the best way to build a string of delimited items in Java?

Pre Java 8:

Apache's commons lang is your friend here - it provides a join method very similar to the one you refer to in Ruby:

StringUtils.join(java.lang.Iterable,char)

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Java 8:

Java 8 provides joining out of the box via StringJoiner and String.join(). The snippets below show how you can use them:

StringJoiner

StringJoiner joiner = new StringJoiner(",");
joiner.add("01").add("02").add("03");
String joinedString = joiner.toString(); // "01,02,03"

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String.join(CharSequence delimiter, CharSequence... elements))

String joinedString = String.join(" - ", "04", "05", "06"); // "04 - 05 - 06"

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String.join(CharSequence delimiter, Iterable<? extends CharSequence> elements)

List<String> strings = new LinkedList<>();
strings.add("Java");strings.add("is");
strings.add("cool");
String message = String.join(" ", strings);
//message returned is: "Java is cool"

Best way to build a delimited string from a list in java

If you want to do it simply and manually, you could do something like this:

String mystr = "";
for(int i = 0; i < personlist.size(); i++) {
  mystr += "\'" + personlist.get(i).firstName + "\'";
  if(i != (personlist.size() - 1)) {
    mystr += ", ";
  }
}

Now mystr contains your list. Note that the comma is only added if we are not acting on the last element in the list (with index personlist.size() - 1).

Of course, there are more elegant/efficient methods to accomplish this, but this one is, in my opinion, the clearest.

What's the best way to build a string of delimited items in Java?

Pre Java 8:

Apache's commons lang is your friend here - it provides a join method very similar to the one you refer to in Ruby:

StringUtils.join(java.lang.Iterable,char)

---

Java 8:

Java 8 provides joining out of the box via StringJoiner and String.join(). The snippets below show how you can use them:

StringJoiner

StringJoiner joiner = new StringJoiner(",");
joiner.add("01").add("02").add("03");
String joinedString = joiner.toString(); // "01,02,03"

---

String.join(CharSequence delimiter, CharSequence... elements))

String joinedString = String.join(" - ", "04", "05", "06"); // "04 - 05 - 06"

---

String.join(CharSequence delimiter, Iterable<? extends CharSequence> elements)

List<String> strings = new LinkedList<>();
strings.add("Java");strings.add("is");
strings.add("cool");
String message = String.join(" ", strings);
//message returned is: "Java is cool"

The most sophisticated way for creating comma-separated Strings from a Collection/Array/List?

Note: This answers was good when it was written 11 years ago, but now there are far better options to do this more cleanly in a single line, both using only Java built-in classes or using a utility library. See other answers below.

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Since strings are immutable, you may want to use the StringBuilder class if you're going to alter the String in the code.

The StringBuilder class can be seen as a mutable String object which allocates more memory when its content is altered.

The original suggestion in the question can be written even more clearly and efficiently, by taking care of the redundant trailing comma:

    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
    for(String string : collectionOfStrings) {
        result.append(string);
        result.append(",");
    }
    return result.length() > 0 ? result.substring(0, result.length() - 1): "";

Best way to build object from delimited string (hopefully not looped case)

Uhm... "nasty" is in the way the constructor handles the parameters. If you can't change that then your code snippet is as good as it may be.

You could get rid of the for loop, though...

instanceVariableA = tokens[0];
instanceVariableB = tokens[1];

and then introduce constants (for readibilty):

instanceVariableA = tokens[VARIABLE_A_INDEX];
instanceVariableB = tokens[VARIABLE_B_INDEX];

NOTE: if you could change the string parameter syntax you could introduce a simple parser and, with a little bit of reflection, handle this thing in a slightly more elegant way:

String inputString = "instanceVariableA=some_stuff|instanceVariableB=some other stuff";
String[] tokens = inputString.split("|");
for (String token : tokens)
{
    String[] elements = token.split("=");
    String propertyName = tokens[0];
    String propertyValue = tokens[1];
    invokeSetter(this, propertyName, propertyValue); // TODO write method
}

The simplest way to comma-delimit a list?

Java 8 and later

Using StringJoiner class, and forEach method :

StringJoiner joiner = new StringJoiner(",");
list.forEach(item -> joiner.add(item.toString());
return joiner.toString();

Using Stream, and Collectors:

return list.stream().
       map(Object::toString).
       collect(Collectors.joining(",")).toString();

Java 7 and earlier

See also #285523

String delim = "";
for (Item i : list) {
    sb.append(delim).append(i);
    delim = ",";
}

Adding delimiter has any elegant way?

From Apache Commons Lang:

String out = StringUtils.join(yourList, '-');

Best way to convert list to comma separated string in java

Since Java 8:

String.join(",", slist);

From Apache Commons library:

import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils

Use:

StringUtils.join(slist, ',');

Another similar question and answer here

Creating a proper string representation of a collection

With Java 8, you can:

String listJoined = String.join(",", list);

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