title: The split() method in Java does not work on a dot (.)
body: <p>I have prepared a simple code snippet in order to separate the erroneous portion from my web application.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public class Main {
  
      public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
          System.out.print("\nEnter a string:-&gt;");
          BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
          String temp = br.readLine();
  
          String words[] = temp.split(".");
  
          for (int i = 0; i &lt; words.length; i++) {
              System.out.println(words[i] + "\n");
          }
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have tested it while building a web application JSF. I just want to know why in the above code <code>temp.split(".")</code> does not work. The statement,</p>
  
  <pre><code>System.out.println(words[i]+"\n"); 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>displays nothing on the console means that it doesn't go through the loop. When I change the argument of the <code>temp.split()</code> method to other characters, It works just fine as usual. What might be the problem?</p>