diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
index ab22c26e41b04..fab89c42b1aca 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/Tokenizer.scala
@@ -40,7 +40,6 @@ class Tokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], Tokenizer] {
   override protected def outputDataType: DataType = new ArrayType(StringType, false)
 }
 
-
 /**
  * :: AlphaComponent ::
  * A regex based tokenizer that extracts tokens either by repeatedly matching the regex(default) 
@@ -51,10 +50,10 @@ class Tokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], Tokenizer] {
  * lowercase = false, minTokenLength = 1
  */
 @AlphaComponent
-class RegexTokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], RegexTokenizer] {
+class RegexTokenizer extends Tokenizer {
 
   /**
-   * param for minimum token length
+   * param for minimum token length, default is one to avoid returning empty strings
    * @group param
    */
   val minTokenLength = new IntParam(this, "minLength", "minimum token length", Some(1))
@@ -66,7 +65,7 @@ class RegexTokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], RegexTokenize
   def getMinTokenLength: Int = get(minTokenLength)
 
   /**
-   * param sets regex as matching gaps(true) or tokens (false)
+   * param sets regex as splitting on gaps(true) or matching tokens (false)
    * @group param
    */
   val gaps = new BooleanParam(this, "gaps", "Set regex to match gaps or tokens", Some(false))
@@ -78,7 +77,7 @@ class RegexTokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], RegexTokenize
   def getGaps: Boolean = get(gaps)
 
   /**
-   * param sets regex used by tokenizer 
+   * param sets regex pattern used by tokenizer 
    * @group param
    */
   val pattern = new Param(this, "pattern", 
@@ -95,7 +94,7 @@ class RegexTokenizer extends UnaryTransformer[String, Seq[String], RegexTokenize
     val re = paramMap(pattern)
     val tokens = if(paramMap(gaps)) str.split(re).toList else (re.r.findAllIn(str)).toList
 
-    tokens.filter(_.length >= paramMap(minTokenLength))
+    tokens.filter(_.length >= paramMap(minTokenLength)).toSeq
   }
 
   override protected def validateInputType(inputType: DataType): Unit = {
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..c19ea225940ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/feature/TokenizerSuite.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.spark.ml.feature
+
+import org.scalatest.FunSuite
+
+import org.apache.spark.mllib.util.MLlibTestSparkContext
+import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Row, SQLContext}
+
+
+case class TextData(rawText : String,wantedTokens: Seq[String])
+class TokenizerSuite extends FunSuite with MLlibTestSparkContext {
+  
+  @transient var sqlContext: SQLContext = _
+  @transient var dataset: DataFrame = _
+
+  override def beforeAll(): Unit = {
+    super.beforeAll()
+    sqlContext = new SQLContext(sc)
+  }
+
+  test("RegexTokenizer"){
+    var myRegExTokenizer = new RegexTokenizer()
+      .setInputCol("rawText")
+      .setOutputCol("tokens")
+
+    dataset = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
+      sc.parallelize(List(
+        TextData("Test for tokenization.",List("Test","for","tokenization",".")),
+        TextData("Te,st. punct",List("Te",",","st",".","punct"))
+    )))
+    testTokenizer(myRegExTokenizer,dataset)
+
+    dataset = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
+      sc.parallelize(List(
+        TextData("Test for tokenization.",List("Test","for","tokenization")),
+        TextData("Te,st. punct",List("punct"))
+    )))
+    myRegExTokenizer.asInstanceOf[RegexTokenizer]
+      .setMinTokenLength(3)
+    testTokenizer(myRegExTokenizer,dataset)
+
+    myRegExTokenizer.asInstanceOf[RegexTokenizer]
+      .setPattern("\\s")
+      .setGaps(true)
+      .setMinTokenLength(0)
+    dataset = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
+      sc.parallelize(List(
+        TextData("Test for tokenization.",List("Test","for","tokenization.")),
+        TextData("Te,st.  punct",List("Te,st.","","punct"))
+    )))
+    testTokenizer(myRegExTokenizer,dataset)
+  }
+
+  test("Tokenizer"){
+    val oldTokenizer =  new Tokenizer()
+      .setInputCol("rawText")
+      .setOutputCol("tokens")
+    dataset = sqlContext.createDataFrame(
+      sc.parallelize(List(
+        TextData("Test for tokenization.",List("test","for","tokenization.")),
+        TextData("Te,st.  punct",List("te,st.","","punct"))
+    )))
+    testTokenizer(oldTokenizer,dataset)
+  }
+
+  def testTokenizer(t: Tokenizer,dataset: DataFrame){
+  	t.transform(dataset)
+      .select("tokens","wantedTokens")
+      .collect().foreach{ 
+        case Row(tokens: Seq[String], wantedTokens: Seq[String]) =>
+          assert(tokens.length == wantedTokens.length)
+          tokens.zip(wantedTokens).foreach(x => assert(x._1 == x._2))
+        case _ => 
+          println()
+          assert(false)
+      }
+  }
+}