Thread: substring with negative endIndex

Ultimately what I need is the PHP version of substring. I have a string that looks like this:

12345:1

It could also be:
1234567:2

Meaning the number before the : could be of any length. The part after the : will always be 1 in length.

So what I want to do is this:

str.substring(0,-2);

Is there an easier way to do this because I can't seem to find that specific functionality.

Time to read the API doc for the String class.
Take a piece of paper and write down the characters in the string and then mark off where you want the start of the substring to be and where you want the end to be. Then look at the the relationships between those marks and the length of the string and what ever else is available.

Wow. Thanks for the attitude. And thanks for not answering my question. I know how the substring method works. But the doc says nothing about using negative indexes.

All I was looking for was a simple "you're going to need to search for the colon and use that as the endIndex" or "here is a better way to do this".

My idea is to help you to learn how to program in java. Part of that is learning how to read the API doc.
I don't give out much code. That is up to you to generate. I try to give you ideas of where to look and how to solve the problem.

But the doc says nothing about using negative indexes.

If its not there, then you can't do it that way.
Now take your piece of paper and draw the marks and figure out the indexes.
I've done it dozens of times. You need to learn how to do it if you want to be a programmer.

I've been programming for nearly a decade, just not in Java. So I understand the basic constructs of programming. I just find the functionality of Java to be a bit lacking, like this in particular.

This is my second interaction with Norm and both have been very condescending.

Regardless, I just want everything before the colon in the string. And I'm guessing I will just do this:

sub = str.substring(0, str.indexOf(":"));

Try it and see what happens.
That'll give you the correct answer a lot quicker then waiting for someone else to copy to a source, compile it and execute it.
If there are errors, or the output is not what you want, post the results here and ask you questions.

Seems to have done the trick. I just had a lot of code to write around that and I figured if someone had the answer here quickly it would save me some time.

Sorry to have bothered you so much.

Well I can appreciate that tactic, I assure you. I spent far too many years on the PHP boards dealing with people like that. I'm sorry if I came off that way. And if I'm being completely honest, I find the Java Docs hard to navigate and search through, but maybe that's because I'm so used to the PHP Docs. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious in the documentation.

Have you ever tried to get thru MS's C and C++ doc?
I find java doc so soothing after I've tried to find something in the Visual Studio's help.

I was a VB6 programmer at my first job and I found it to be frustrating at least. I'm sure their C and C++ docs aren't much better. The C code I've written was never done in VS so I didn't depend on MS for my information. So yeah, I would agree that Java docs are probably a step up but I just wish someone would take them and format them and make them easier to search.

make them easier to search.

Do you know about the Index? Its a link at the topic of the API doc pages in the blue bar. http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E...se/6/docs/api/
There is an alphabetical(A-Z) list with links.
Also for the tutorial: The Really Big Index

BTW: One of my java projects was a Search that will go thru the API doc I have on my computer and return a page of links to the pages with the searched for text.

Interesting. I will look into that stuff more. I also have some books I am trying to use.

Thank you for your help. I really do appreciate it.

Well since I explained that I'm not a n00b, things have turned 180. And maybe I was reading the wrong way before.