[java] How to parse this string in Java?

Using String.split method will surely work as told in other answers here.

Also, StringTokenizer class can be used to to parse the String using / as the delimiter.

import java.util.StringTokenizer;
public class Test
{
    public static void main(String []args)
    {
        String s = "prefix/dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/..";
        StringTokenizer tokenizer = new StringTokenizer(s, "/");
        String dir1 = tokenizer.nextToken();
        String dir2 = tokenizer.nextToken();
        System.out.println("Dir 1  : "+dir1);
        System.out.println("Dir 2 : " + dir2);
    }
}

Gives the output as :

Dir 1  : prefix
Dir 2 : dir1

Here you can find more about StringTokenizer.