Trimming a java string based on string values?

I have a database query that returns some string data in a column. I would like to trim this field based on whether a particular string exists in the data?

If开发者_JAVA百科 the string contains a comma ",", I'm looking to return LEFT of that first comma If the string contains a hypen "-", I would like to return LEFT of that first hypen If the string contains neither, I would like to return the first 14 characters of the string?

I am headed in this direction at the moment:

StringHandling.LEFT(row1.DESCRIPTION,StringHandling.INDEX(row1.DESCRIPTION,"-"))

How can I include some logic to check for the comma or lack thereof and return the appropriate substring in my expression??

Thanks so much!

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Another alternative (I stole Bohemian's Math.min() technique ;-)) :

 public String dbString(String s){
        String[] parts = s.split("(,|-)");

        String trimmed = parts.length > 1? parts[0] : parts[0].substring(0, Math.min(14,  parts[0].length());

        return trimmed;
    }

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Something like this? (Edited to handle null)

public static String specialTrim(String input) {
    if (input == null)
        return null; // or return "", or whatever else you want
    if (input.contains(","))
        return input.substring(0, input.indexOf(","));
    if (input.contains("."))
        return input.substring(0, input.indexOf("."));
    return input.substring(0, Math.min(14, input.length()));
}

The Math.min() is to handle when the string is less than 14 characters long.

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Check the API for String.contains, String.indexOf, and String.substring.

String theString = <wherever it comes from>;
// if it contains a ,
if (theString.contains(",")) {
    // return all elements one position to the left
    return theString.substring(0, theString.indexOf(",") - 1);
} else // and repeat