[java] How do I use a delimiter with Scanner.useDelimiter in Java?

sc = new Scanner(new File(dataFile));
sc.useDelimiter(",|\r\n");

I don't understand how delimiter works, can someone explain this in layman terms?

With Scanner the default delimiters are the whitespace characters.

But Scanner can define where a token starts and ends based on a set of delimiter, wich could be specified in two ways:

1. Using the Scanner method: useDelimiter(String pattern)
2. Using the Scanner method : useDelimiter(Pattern pattern) where Pattern is a regular expression that specifies the delimiter set.

So useDelimiter() methods are used to tokenize the Scanner input, and behave like StringTokenizer class, take a look at these tutorials for further information:

• Setting Delimiters for Scanner
• Java.util.Scanner.useDelimiter() Method

And here is an Example:

public static void main(String[] args) {

    // Initialize Scanner object
    Scanner scan = new Scanner("Anna Mills/Female/18");
    // initialize the string delimiter
    scan.useDelimiter("/");
    // Printing the tokenized Strings
    while(scan.hasNext()){
        System.out.println(scan.next());
    }
    // closing the scanner stream
    scan.close();
}

Prints this output:

Anna Mills
Female
18

For example:

String myInput = null;
Scanner myscan = new Scanner(System.in).useDelimiter("\\n");
System.out.println("Enter your input: ");
myInput = myscan.next();
System.out.println(myInput);

This will let you use Enter as a delimiter.

Thus, if you input:

Hello world (ENTER)

it will print 'Hello World'.