[RESOLVED] Split Paragraph into sentences

I have an app that has a paragraph(s) passed in, and I need to figure out how many sentences it has.

Right now, this is how I'm doing it:

Code:

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        private long getSentenceCount(String text){
                String delim = "@@@@";
                String delim2 = "####";
                String tempText = text.replace(". ", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace(".\r\n", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace("! ", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace("!\r\n", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace("? ", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace("?\r\n", delim);
                tempText = tempText.replace("\r\n", delim2);
               
                String [] sentences = tempText.split(delim);
                long sCnt = 0;
                for(String s : sentences){
                        if(s.contains(delim2)){
                                String[] temp = s.split(delim2);
                                for(String t : temp){
                                        if(textIsSentence(t) == true){ //textIsSentence checks that the string is not empty, that there are more than 4 words (arbitrary number for now) and the first letter is uppercasee
                                                sCnt ++;
                                        }
                                }
                        }else{
                                if(textIsSentence(s) == true){
                                        sCnt ++;
                                }
                        }
                }               
                return sCnt;
        }

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I'm wondering if there is a better way to do this. With regex prehaps. But I'm having trouble figuring out how to write the pattern.

What it needs to find is:
period, question mark or exclamation point, followed by either a space or a new line. Or just a new line.

Thanks

I hope this helps

Code:

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import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class Test
{
        private static final String lineSeparator = System.getProperty("line.separator");

        public static void main(final String[] args)
        {
                final File f = new File("test.txt");
                try
                {
                        final String paragraph = Test.readFileString(f);
                        final Pattern p = Pattern.compile("[\\.\\!\\?]\\s+", Pattern.MULTILINE);
                        final int value = p.split(paragraph).length;
                        System.out.println("Number Of Sentences: " + value);
                }
                catch (final FileNotFoundException e)
                {
                        System.err.println("File \"Test.txt\" Was not found");
                }

        }

        private static String readFileString(final File file) throws FileNotFoundException
        {
                final Scanner scanner = new Scanner(file);
                final StringBuilder sBuilder = new StringBuilder();
                while (scanner.hasNextLine())
                        sBuilder.append(scanner.nextLine() + Test.lineSeparator);
                return sBuilder.toString();
        }
}

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You might also want to take a look at class java.util.regex.Pattern

Thanks, that worked. I knew it could be done with regex. For some reason I just can't grasp regex. It's usually pure luck if I can figure out the correct pattern to use, and that's always a simple pattern.

Just bear in mind that you can only have per character selections as implemented by square bracket, e.g. [\\.\\!\\?] at char position you can have period, exclamation or question mark. You can't have character group selections, e.g. you want either aa or zz such as [(aa)(zz)]+ but that syntax is invalid. You'll need two patterns, one for aa and the other for zz.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by leinad31

Just bear in mind that you can only have per character selections as implemented by square bracket, e.g. [\\.\\!\\?] at char position you can have period, exclamation or question mark. You can't have character group selections, e.g. you want either aa or zz such as [(aa)(zz)]+ but that syntax is invalid. You'll need two patterns, one for aa and the other for zz.

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Are you a software engineer or something??