regex - java string split on all non-alphanumeric except apostrophes

Question

So I want to split a string in java on any non-alphanumeric characters.

Currently I have been doing it like this

words= Str.split("\W+");

However I want to keep apostrophes("'") in there. Is there any regular expression to preserve apostrophes but kick the rest of the junk? Thanks.

Answer 1

words = Str.split("[^\w']+");

Just add it to the character class. W is equivalent to [^w], which you can then add ' to.

Do note, however, that w also actually includes underscores. If you want to split on underscores as well, you should be using [^a-zA-Z0-9'] instead.