You can use the split() method to divide a string into smaller parts. The method accepts a regular expression that defines where to split and returns an array of strings.

In this example, you will split a sentence into words using whitespace as the separator.

Source code

Save the following code as SplitStringExample.java:

public class SplitStringExample {
    void main() {
        String text = "  Learn Java   one snippet\tat a time.  ";

        if (text.isBlank()) {
            IO.println("The text contains no words.");
            return;
        }

        String[] words = text.strip().split("\\p{javaWhitespace}+");

        for (String word : words) {
            IO.println(word);
        }

        IO.println("Total words: " + words.length);
    }
}

Explanation

The input contains spaces at both ends, multiple spaces between some words, and a tab character:

String text = "  Learn Java   one snippet\tat a time.  ";

The escape sequence \t represents a tab.

Checking for blank text

Before splitting, the program checks whether the text is empty or contains only whitespace:

if (text.isBlank()) {
    IO.println("The text contains no words.");
    return;
}

This avoids treating an empty string as a word. The return statement ends the method when there is no text to process.

Removing surrounding whitespace

The strip() method removes leading and trailing whitespace:

text.strip()

It returns a string without changing the original string, because strings are immutable.

Splitting on whitespace

The following statement splits the cleaned text:

String[] words = text.strip().split("\\p{javaWhitespace}+");

The regular expression has two parts:

Part	Meaning
\p{javaWhitespace}	Matches whitespace recognized by Character.isWhitespace()
+	Matches one or more consecutive whitespace characters

The backslash is written twice in the Java string literal so the regular expression receives a single backslash.

Using + treats consecutive spaces or tabs as one separator. This prevents empty elements between words when several whitespace characters appear together.

Reading the results

The enhanced for loop prints each element:

for (String word : words) {
    IO.println(word);
}

The array’s length field gives the number of resulting words.

Run the example

Compile and run the file:

javac SplitStringExample.java
java SplitStringExample

Output

Learn
Java
one
snippet
at
a
time.
Total words: 7

This example treats each whitespace-separated token as a word. Punctuation remains attached, so the last token is "time.". For language-aware word boundaries, use a text-processing tool such as BreakIterator.