MarkLogic 9 Product Documentation

cts:tokenize

cts:tokenize(
   $text as xs:string,
   [$language as xs:string?],
   [$field as xs:string?]
) as cts:token*

Summary

Tokenizes text into words, punctuation, and spaces. Returns output in the type cts:token, which has subtypes cts:word, cts:punctuation, and cts:space, all of which are subtypes of xs:string.

Usage Notes

When you tokenize a string with cts:tokenize, each word is represented by an instance of cts:word, each punctuation character is represented by an instance of cts:punctuation, each set of adjacent spaces is represented by an instance of cts:space, and each set of adjacent line breaks is represented by an instance of cts:space.

Unlike the standard XQuery function fn:tokenize, cts:tokenize returns words, punctuation, and spaces as different types. You can therefore use a typeswitch to handle each type differently. For example, you can use cts:tokenize to remove all punctuation from a string, or create logic to test for the type and return different things for different types, as shown in the first two examples below.

You can use xdmp:describe to show how a given string will be tokenized. When run on the results of cts:tokenize, the xdmp:describe function returns the types and the values for each token. For a sample of this pattern, see the third example below.

Example

(: Remove all punctuation :)
let $string := "The red, blue, green, and orange
                balloons were launched!"
let $noPunctuation :=
  for $token in cts:tokenize($string)
  return
    typeswitch ($token)
     case $token as cts:punctuation return ""
     case $token as cts:word return $token
     case $token as cts:space return $token
     default return ()
return string-join($noPunctuation, "")
  

 => The red blue green and orange
    balloons were launched

Example

(: Insert the string "XX" before and after
   all punctuation tokens :)
let $string := "The red, blue, green, and orange
                 balloons were launched!"
let $tokens := cts:tokenize($string)
return string-join(
for $x in $tokens
return if ($x instance of cts:punctuation)
       then (concat("XX",
                     $x, "XX"))
       else ($x) , "")
=> The redXX,XX blueXX,XX greenXX,XX and orange
    balloons were launchedXX!XX

Example

(: show the types and tokens for a string :)
xdmp:describe(cts:tokenize("blue, green"))

=> (cts:word("blue"), cts:punctuation(","),
    cts:space(" "), cts:word("green"))