title: How to use split a string into character array without special characters?
body: <pre><code>    Scanner _in = new Scanner(System.in);
      System.out.println("Enter an Equation of variables");
      String _string = _in.nextLine();
  
  
      char[] cArray = _string.toCharArray();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I want to remove the symbols "+,=" and I want to remove any repeating variables.</p>
  
  <p>so far I have:</p>
  
  <pre><code>for(int i = 0; i &lt; cArray.length; i++){
     if(cArray[i].equals(+)|| cArray[i].equals(=)){
             cArray[i] = null;
          }
  
  }   
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>However, I dont know how to condence the array to remove any gaps and I don't know how to remove repeating characters, I think I am making this harder than it needs to be      </p>