Token Cleaner Java Method

Question

I need a TokenCleaner method for the WordCount project that I am doing. A token is a sequence of characters surrounded by whitespace, usually a word, that needsto be "cleaned" of any punctuation and capitalization. I have a template for it but Im not sure how to do or start it.

public class TokenCleaner
{
    public static void main()
    {
        String[] tokens = {"That's","empty-handed?","42","...idk...","\"quote\""};
        for(int i = 0; i < tokens.length; i++)
        {
            System.out.println("Original:\t"+tokens[i]);
            System.out.println("Cleaned:\t"+cleanToken(tokens[i]));
        }
    }
private static String cleanToken(String token)
    {
        /** remove leading special characters and numbers **/
        // while the token's length is greater than zero AND the first character isn't a letter
            // remove the first character from the token
        /** remove trailing special characters and numbers **/
        // while the token's length is greater than zero AND the last character isn't a letter
            // remove the last character from the token
        // return a lowercase version of the token
        /** Note: It is possible for the cleaned token to be an empty String if the given token
            consisted of only non-letter characters */
        return null; // placeholder return statement
    }

Can someone please help?

Thank you

Answer 1

I can suggest you to parse every caracter , and if its equal to anything you want to delete you can delete it , and if not lowercase it , for instance :

private static String cleanToken(String token) {
// arraylist of new token
ArrayList<String> newtoken = new ArrayList<String>();
// arraylist of elements you wanna delete
ArrayList<String> todelete = new ArrayList<String>();
todelete.add("@"); // you can add all element u wanna delete
// parsing your token
for(int i=0 ; i < token.lentgh() ; i++ ) {
    if ( todelete.contains( token.charAt(i) ) ) {
        // you can delete it in the way you want
    }
    else {
        // lowercase it
        newtoken.add( (token.charAt(i)).toString().toLowerCase() ) ;
    }
}
// and now you can merge all elements of your newtoken list to one String
String NewToken = "";
for ( String t : newtoken ) {
     NewToken = NewToken + t ;
}
return NewToken;
}