splitter for strings

[monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Monday, 9 June 2014 at 11:04:12 UTC, Chris wrote:
> From the library reference:
>
> assert(equal(splitter("hello  world", ' '), [ "hello", "", 
> "world" ]));
>
> and
>
> "If a range with one separator is given, the result is a range 
> with two empty elements."
>
> My problem was that if I have input like
>
> auto word = "bla-";
>
> it will return parts.data.length == 2, so I would have to check 
> parts.data[1] != "". This is too awkward. I just want the parts 
> of the word, i.e.
>
> length == 2 // grab [0] grab [1]
> length == 1 // grab [0] (no second part, as in "bla-")
> length > 2 // do something else

You can just pipe in an extra "filter!(a=>!a.empty)", and it'll 
do what you want:
put(parts, w.splitter('-').filter!(a=>!a.empty)());

The rational for this behavior, is that it preserves the "total 
amount of information" from your input. EG:

assert(equal(myString.spliter(sep).join(sep), myString));

If the empty tokens were all stripped out, that wouldn't work, 
you'd have lost information about how many separators there 
actually were, and where they were.