I recommend to look at the Processing refference in the "String functions" index section to see some cool usages of String splitting and stuff. You may also want to use the String Java class (the same P5 uses) since it makes available all the methods that exist in Java to operate and format Strings.

If it's a String, use the getChars() or getBytes() method to covert the String's contents into an array. One-step satisfaction.....

yeah, using split() on an empty string works in Python but not Java

KB, Trion Worlds

1. // Bunch of characters
2. char[] schars = { 'H', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o' };
3. // To string
4. String s = String.valueOf(schars);
5. // Can also do s = new String(chars); but that's less efficient, I think
   
6. // Back to chars
7. char[] echars = new char[s.length()];
8. s.getChars(0, s.length()-1, echars, 0);
9. // A float number
10. float f = 3.1415926;
11. // To string
12. String fs = String.valueOf(f);
13. // Back to float
14. float nf = float(fs); // Specific to Processing! Otherwise, have to catch exceptions
    

oh, it seems to be working without emptying it :)

how can I set a char to empty? 

The short answer is you can't you can only set it to some value they would not normally be used.

For instance the code
char schars[][]= new char[2][20];
is an array that can hold 40 characters so requires 40 bytes of memory i.e. each byte can hold one character.

Now a byte can hold any value in the range 0-255 and some of this range (32-127) is used to represent printable characters.  For instance the following code will display the printable charcters.

1. void setup(){
2.   char[] c = new char[128];
3.   println("Create charaters using ASCII values");
4.   for(int i = 0; i < c.length; i++)
5.       c[i] = (char)i;
6.   println("Display them");
7.   for(int i = 32; i < c.length; i++)
8.     println(i + "    " + c[i]);
9. }

The values 0-31 are control codes for instance
13  = carriage return
0 = NULL (not the same as Java keyword null)
8 = backspace
9 = tab

The mapping of the characters 0-127 is known as the ASCII set.

If you want to empty a character then I suggest you assign the NULL character like this
schars[0][0]='\0';


If you are familiar with the idea of constants then before your methods you could define NULL like this
final char NULL = '\0';

then use it like this

schars[0][0] = NULL;

or if used in a test...

if(schars[0][0] == NULL) ...

it will save you some work and make it clear what you are doing.

Qualifying question: are you writing a textfield class, or using a readymade one? If using a readymade library class, are you sure the operations you want aren't already defined by that class? Just checking...

KB, Trion Worlds

^_^;;

KB, Trion Worlds