question: private static IPath [ ] decodePatterns ( NamedNodeMap nodeMap , String tag ) { String sequence = removeAttribute ( tag , nodeMap ) ; if ( ! sequence . equals ( "" ) ) { char [ ] [ ] patterns = CharOperation . splitOn ( '|' , sequence . toCharArray ( ) ) ; int patternCount ; if ( ( patternCount = patterns . length ) > 0 ) { IPath [ ] paths = new IPath [ patternCount ] ; int index = 0 ; for ( int j = 0 ; j < patternCount ; j ++ ) { char [ ] pattern = patterns [ j ] ; if ( pattern . length == 0 ) continue ; paths [ index ++ ] = new Path ( new String ( pattern ) ) ; } if ( index < patternCount ) System . arraycopy ( paths , 0 , paths = new IPath [ index ] , 0 , index ) ; return paths ; } } return null ; }
target:  Decode some element tag containing a sequence of patterns into IPath[]