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C# Split a string and build a stringarray out of the string [duplicate]

I need to split a string into newlines in .NET and the only way I know of to split strings is with the Split method. However that will not allow me to (easily) split on a newline, so what is the best way to do it?

To split on a string you need to use the overload that takes an array of strings:
string[] lines = theText.Split(
new string[] { Environment.NewLine },
StringSplitOptions.None
);
Edit:
If you want to handle different types of line breaks in a text, you can use the ability to match more than one string. This will correctly split on either type of line break, and preserve empty lines and spacing in the text:
string[] lines = theText.Split(
new string[] { "\r\n", "\r", "\n" },
StringSplitOptions.None
);

What about using a StringReader?
using (System.IO.StringReader reader = new System.IO.StringReader(input)) {
string line = reader.ReadLine();
}

Try to avoid using string.Split for a general solution, because you'll use more memory everywhere you use the function -- the original string, and the split copy, both in memory. Trust me that this can be one hell of a problem when you start to scale -- run a 32-bit batch-processing app processing 100MB documents, and you'll crap out at eight concurrent threads. Not that I've been there before...
Instead, use an iterator like this;
public static IEnumerable<string> SplitToLines(this string input)
{
if (input == null)
{
yield break;
}
using (System.IO.StringReader reader = new System.IO.StringReader(input))
{
string line;
while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
yield return line;
}
}
}
This will allow you to do a more memory efficient loop around your data;
foreach(var line in document.SplitToLines())
{
// one line at a time...
}
Of course, if you want it all in memory, you can do this;
var allTheLines = document.SplitToLines().ToArray();

You should be able to split your string pretty easily, like so:
aString.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray());

Based on Guffa's answer, in an extension class, use:
public static string[] Lines(this string source) {
return source.Split(new string[] { "\r\n", "\n" }, StringSplitOptions.None);
}

Regex is also an option:
private string[] SplitStringByLineFeed(string inpString)
{
string[] locResult = Regex.Split(inpString, "[\r\n]+");
return locResult;
}

For a string variable s:
s.Split(new string[]{Environment.NewLine},StringSplitOptions.None)
This uses your environment's definition of line endings. On Windows, line endings are CR-LF (carriage return, line feed) or in C#'s escape characters \r\n.
This is a reliable solution, because if you recombine the lines with String.Join, this equals your original string:
var lines = s.Split(new string[]{Environment.NewLine},StringSplitOptions.None);
var reconstituted = String.Join(Environment.NewLine,lines);
Debug.Assert(s==reconstituted);
What not to do:
Use StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries, because this will break markup such as Markdown where empty lines have syntactic purpose.
Split on separator new char[]{Environment.NewLine}, because on Windows this will create one empty string element for each new line.

I just thought I would add my two-bits, because the other solutions on this question do not fall into the reusable code classification and are not convenient.
The following block of code extends the string object so that it is available as a natural method when working with strings.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.ObjectModel;
namespace System
{
public static class StringExtensions
{
public static string[] Split(this string s, string delimiter, StringSplitOptions options = StringSplitOptions.None)
{
return s.Split(new string[] { delimiter }, options);
}
}
}
You can now use the .Split() function from any string as follows:
string[] result;
// Pass a string, and the delimiter
result = string.Split("My simple string", " ");
// Split an existing string by delimiter only
string foo = "my - string - i - want - split";
result = foo.Split("-");
// You can even pass the split options parameter. When omitted it is
// set to StringSplitOptions.None
result = foo.Split("-", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
To split on a newline character, simply pass "\n" or "\r\n" as the delimiter parameter.
Comment: It would be nice if Microsoft implemented this overload.

Starting with .NET 6 we can use the new String.ReplaceLineEndings() method to canonicalize cross-platform line endings, so these days I find this to be the simplest way:
var lines = input
.ReplaceLineEndings()
.Split(Environment.NewLine, StringSplitOptions.None);

I'm currently using this function (based on other answers) in VB.NET:
Private Shared Function SplitLines(text As String) As String()
Return text.Split({Environment.NewLine, vbCrLf, vbLf}, StringSplitOptions.None)
End Function
It tries to split on the platform-local newline first, and then falls back to each possible newline.
I've only needed this inside one class so far. If that changes, I will probably make this Public and move it to a utility class, and maybe even make it an extension method.
Here's how to join the lines back up, for good measure:
Private Shared Function JoinLines(lines As IEnumerable(Of String)) As String
Return String.Join(Environment.NewLine, lines)
End Function

Well, actually split should do:
//Constructing string...
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.AppendLine("first line");
sb.AppendLine("second line");
sb.AppendLine("third line");
string s = sb.ToString();
Console.WriteLine(s);
//Splitting multiline string into separate lines
string[] splitted = s.Split(new string[] {System.Environment.NewLine}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
// Output (separate lines)
for( int i = 0; i < splitted.Count(); i++ )
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", i, splitted[i]);
}

string[] lines = text.Split(
Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray(),
StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyStrings);
The RemoveEmptyStrings option will make sure you don't have empty entries due to \n following a \r
(Edit to reflect comments:) Note that it will also discard genuine empty lines in the text. This is usually what I want but it might not be your requirement.

I did not know about Environment.Newline, but I guess this is a very good solution.
My try would have been:
string str = "Test Me\r\nTest Me\nTest Me";
var splitted = str.Split('\n').Select(s => s.Trim()).ToArray();
The additional .Trim removes any \r or \n that might be still present (e. g. when on windows but splitting a string with os x newline characters). Probably not the fastest method though.
EDIT:
As the comments correctly pointed out, this also removes any whitespace at the start of the line or before the new line feed. If you need to preserve that whitespace, use one of the other options.

Examples here are great and helped me with a current "challenge" to split RSA-keys to be presented in a more readable way. Based on Steve Coopers solution:
string Splitstring(string txt, int n = 120, string AddBefore = "", string AddAfterExtra = "")
{
//Spit each string into a n-line length list of strings
var Lines = Enumerable.Range(0, txt.Length / n).Select(i => txt.Substring(i * n, n)).ToList();
//Check if there are any characters left after split, if so add the rest
if(txt.Length > ((txt.Length / n)*n) )
Lines.Add(txt.Substring((txt.Length/n)*n));
//Create return text, with extras
string txtReturn = "";
foreach (string Line in Lines)
txtReturn += AddBefore + Line + AddAfterExtra + Environment.NewLine;
return txtReturn;
}
Presenting a RSA-key with 33 chars width and quotes are then simply
Console.WriteLine(Splitstring(RSAPubKey, 33, "\"", "\""));
Output:
Hopefully someone find it usefull...

Silly answer: write to a temporary file so you can use the venerable
File.ReadLines
var s = "Hello\r\nWorld";
var path = Path.GetTempFileName();
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(path))
{
writer.Write(s);
}
var lines = File.ReadLines(path);

using System.IO;
string textToSplit;
if (textToSplit != null)
{
List<string> lines = new List<string>();
using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(textToSplit))
{
for (string line = reader.ReadLine(); line != null; line = reader.ReadLine())
{
lines.Add(line);
}
}
}

Very easy, actually.
VB.NET:
Private Function SplitOnNewLine(input as String) As String
Return input.Split(Environment.NewLine)
End Function
C#:
string splitOnNewLine(string input)
{
return input.split(environment.newline);
}

How to add suffix at each line of large string

I have written a code to add Suffix at end of each line of a multi-line String but code only appends at the end of string. I am beginner. Can somebody help me in clarifying where I am mistaken? Here is my code:
protected void Prefix_Suffix_Btn_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
String txt_input = Input_id.InnerText.ToString().Trim();
String txt_suffix = Suffix_id.InnerText.ToString().Trim();
String txt_output = Output_id.InnerText.ToString().Trim();
txt_input = txt_input.Replace(txt_suffix + "\n", "\n");
txt_input = txt_input + txt_suffix;
Output_id.InnerText = txt_input;
}
Input:
Line1
Line2
Line3
Desired output:
Line1AppededText
Line2AppendedText
Line3AppendedText

Let's Split text to lines, append each line and, finally, Join into string back:
string source = string.Join(Environment.NewLine,
"Line1",
"Line2",
"Line3");
// Let's have a look at the initial string;
Console.WriteLine(source);
Console.WriteLine();
string result = string.Join(Environment.NewLine, source
.Split(new string[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.None)
.Select(line => line + "AppendedText"));
Console.Write(result);
Outcome:
Line1
Line2
Line3
Line1AppendedText
Line2AppendedText
Line3AppendedText

The string of that comes out of your Input_id.InnerText is a string that consists of many lines. So if you want to append to each line, you need think of a way to treat those lines separately.
A line-end is denoted as the character '\n'. It looks like 2 characters to you, but the engine will treat it as one: line-end.
What you can do is split (break up) this string into multiple strings by snapping the string whenever you find a '\n'. You can do this by the following:
var lines = Input_id.InnerText.ToString().Split('\n');
Now lines contains an array of strings, each item in there containing a line of the input.
Now you could create a new string that will be built up by your split array as follows:
var newString = "";
foreach(var line in lines) {
newString += line + "<appendText>\n"; //note how we add the \n again since those disappeared by splitting
}
Now newString will contain the new string with each line containing the appended text.
A way shorter answer would be to for instance use the replace function like this:
var newString = Input_id.InnerText.ToString().Replace("\n", "<AppendedText>\n");
There is many ways to do what you want.

You just made a mistake when passing your values into the Replace() method. The documentation for String.Replace() defines it like this:
public string Replace (string oldValue, string newValue);
The first argument ("oldValue") should be the thing you want to replace. The second argument ("newValue") should be the thing you want to change it to. You've just got them the wrong way round. You're asking it to replace the new text (suffix and newline) with the old text (just the newline), which clearly it can't do because the suffix text doesn't exist in the string yet - and it wouldn't be logical even if it worked.
Change
txt_input = txt_input.Replace(txt_suffix + "\n", "\n");
to
txt_input = txt_input.Replace("\n", txt_suffix + "\n");
and you should be fine. As other answers alluded to, there may be nicer ways of achieving the same output, but in terms of fixing your original code this is all you should need to do.
Here's a live demo (just using console output instead of HTML elements): https://dotnetfiddle.net/jnzgUy

Identify the string that does not exists in another string using regex and C#

I am trying to capture a string that does not contains in another string.
string searchedString = " This is my search string";
string subsetofSearchedString = "This is my";
My output should be "Search string". I would like to go with only regex so that I can handle complex strings.
The below is the code that I have tried so far and I am not successful.
Match match = new Regex(subsetofSearchedString ).Match(searchedString );
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(match.Value))
{
UnmatchedString= UnmatchedString.Replace(match.Value, string.Empty);
}
Update : The above code is not working for the below texts.
text1 = 'Property Damage (2015 ACURA)' Exposure Added Automatically for IP:Claimant DriverLoss Reserve Line :Property DamageReserve Amount $ : STATIP Role(s): Owner, DriverExposure Owner :Jaimee Watson_csr Author:
text2 = 'Property Damage (2015 ACURA)' Exposure Added Automatically for IP:Claimant DriverLoss Reserve Line :Property DamageReserve Amount $ : STATIP Role(s): Owner, Driver
Match match = new Regex(text2).Match(text1);

You can use Regex.Split:
var ans = Regex.Split(searchedString, subsetofSearchedString);
If you want the answer as a single string minus the subset, you can join it:
var ansjoined = String.Join("", ans);
Replacing with String.Empty will also work:
var ans = Regex.Replace(searchedString, subsetOfSearchedString, String.Empty);

Answer :
Regex wasn't working for me because of the presence of metacharacters in my string. Regex.Escape did not help me with the comparison.
String Contains worked like a charm here
if (text1.Contains(text2))
{
status = TestResult.Pass;
text1= text1.Replace(text2, string.Empty);
}

replace a character in a string in c# based on position with a string

I want to replace a charecter in a string with a string in c#.
I have tried the following,
Here in the following program, i want replace set of charecters between charecters ':' and first occurance of '-' with some others charecters.
I could able to extract the set of charecters between ':' and first occurance of '-'.
Can any one say how to insert these back in the source string.
string source= "tcm:7-426-8";
string target= "tcm:10-15-2";
int fistunderscore = target.IndexOf("-");
string temp = target.Substring(4, fistunderscore-4);
Response.Write("<BR>"+"temp1:" + temp + "<BR>");
Examples:
source: "tcm:7-426-8" or "tcm:100-426-8" or "tcm:10-426-8"
Target: "tcm:10-15-2" or "tcm:5-15-2" or "tcm:100-15-2"
output: "tcm:10-426-8" or "tcm:5-426-8" or "tcm:100-426-8"
In a nutshell, I want to replace the set of charectes between ':' and '-'(firstoccurance) and the charecters extracetd from the same sort of string.
Can any help how it can be done.
Thank you.

If you want to replace the first ":Number-" from the source with the content from target, you can use the following regex.
var pattern1 = New Regex(":\d{1,3}-{1}");
if(pattern1.IsMatch(source) && pattern1.IsMatch(target))
{
var source = "tcm:7-426-8";
var target = "tcm:10-15-2";
var res = pattern1.Replace(source, pattern1.Match(target).Value);
// "tcm:10-426-8"
}
Edit: To not have your string replaced with something empty, add an if-clause before the actualy replacing.

Try a regex solution - first this method, takes the source and target strings, and performs a regex replace on the first, targetting the first numbers after the 'tcm', which must be anchored to the start of the string. In the MatchEvaluator it executes the same regex again, but on the target string.
static Regex rx = new Regex("(?<=^tcm:)[0-9]+", RegexOptions.Compiled);
public string ReplaceOneWith(string source, string target)
{
return rx.Replace(source, new MatchEvaluator((Match m) =>
{
var targetMatch = rx.Match(target);
if (targetMatch.Success)
return targetMatch.Value;
return m.Value; //don't replace if no match
}));
}
Note that no replacement is performed if the regex doesn't return a match on the target string.
Now run this test (probably need to copy the above into the test class):
[TestMethod]
public void SO9973554()
{
Assert.AreEqual("tcm:10-426-8", ReplaceOneWith("tcm:7-426-8", "tcm:10-15-2"));
Assert.AreEqual("tcm:5-426-8", ReplaceOneWith("tcm:100-426-8", "tcm:5-15-2"));
Assert.AreEqual("tcm:100-426-8", ReplaceOneWith("tcm:10-426-8", "tcm:100-15-2"));
}

I'm not clear on the logic used to decide which bit from which string is used, but still, you should use Split(), rather than mucking about with string offsets:
(note that the Remove(0,4) is there to remove the tcm: prefix)
string[] source = "tcm:90-2-10".Remove(0,4).Split('-');
string[] target = "tcm:42-23-17".Remove(0,4).Split('-');
Now you have the numbers from both source and target in easy-to-access arrays, so you can build the new string any way you want:
string output = string.Format("tcm:{0}-{1}-{2}", source[0], target[1], source[2]);

Heres without regex
string source = "tcm:7-426-8";
string target = "tcm:10-15-2";
int targetBeginning = target.IndexOf("-");
int sourceBeginning = source.IndexOf("-");
string temp = target.Substring(0, targetBeginning);//tcm:10
string result = temp + source.Substring(sourceBeginning, source.Length-sourceBeginning); //tcm:10 + -426-8

Highlight a list of words using a regular expression in c#

I have some site content that contains abbreviations. I have a list of recognised abbreviations for the site, along with their explanations. I want to create a regular expression which will allow me to replace all of the recognised abbreviations found in the content with some markup.
For example:
content: This is just a little test of the memb to see if it gets picked up.
Deb of course should also be caught here.
abbreviations: memb = Member; deb = Debut;
result: This is just a little test of the [a title="Member"]memb[/a] to see if it gets picked up.
[a title="Debut"]Deb[/a] of course should also be caught here.
(This is just example markup for simplicity).
Thanks.
EDIT:
CraigD's answer is nearly there, but there are issues. I only want to match whole words. I also want to keep the correct capitalisation of each word replaced, so that deb is still deb, and Deb is still Deb as per the original text. For example, this input:
This is just a little test of the memb.
And another memb, but not amemba.
Deb of course should also be caught here.deb!

First you would need to Regex.Escape() all the input strings.
Then you can look for them in the string, and iteratively replace them by the markup you have in mind:
string abbr = "memb";
string word = "Member";
string pattern = String.Format("\b{0}\b", Regex.Escape(abbr));
string substitue = String.Format("[a title=\"{0}\"]{1}[/a]", word, abbr);
string output = Regex.Replace(input, pattern, substitue);
EDIT: I asked if a simple String.Replace() wouldn't be enough - but I can see why regex is desirable: you can use it to enforce "whole word" replacements only by making a pattern that uses word boundary anchors.
You can go as far as building a single pattern from all your escaped input strings, like this:
\b(?:{abbr_1}|{abbr_2}|{abbr_3}|{abbr_n})\b
and then using a match evaluator to find the right replacement. This way you can avoid iterating the input string more than once.

Not sure how well this will scale to a big word list, but I think it should give the output you want (although in your question the 'result' seems identical to 'content')?
Anyway, let me know if this is what you're after
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var input = #"This is just a little test of the memb to see if it gets picked up.
Deb of course should also be caught here.";
var dictionary = new Dictionary<string,string>
{
{"memb", "Member"}
,{"deb","Debut"}
};
var regex = "(" + String.Join(")|(", dictionary.Keys.ToArray()) + ")";
foreach (Match metamatch in Regex.Matches(input
, regex /*#"(memb)|(deb)"*/
, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture))
{
input = input.Replace(metamatch.Value, dictionary[metamatch.Value.ToLower()]);
}
Console.Write (input);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

For anyone interested, here is my final solution. It is for a .NET user control. It uses a single pattern with a match evaluator, as suggested by Tomalak, so there is no foreach loop. It's an elegant solution, and it gives me the correct output for the sample input while preserving correct casing for matched strings.
public partial class Abbreviations : System.Web.UI.UserControl
{
private Dictionary<String, String> dictionary = DataHelper.GetAbbreviations();
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
string input = "This is just a little test of the memb. And another memb, but not amemba to see if it gets picked up. Deb of course should also be caught here.deb!";
var regex = "\\b(?:" + String.Join("|", dictionary.Keys.ToArray()) + ")\\b";
MatchEvaluator myEvaluator = new MatchEvaluator(GetExplanationMarkup);
input = Regex.Replace(input, regex, myEvaluator, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
litContent.Text = input;
}
private string GetExplanationMarkup(Match m)
{
return string.Format("<b title='{0}'>{1}</b>", dictionary[m.Value.ToLower()], m.Value);
}
}
The output looks like this (below). Note that it only matches full words, and that the casing is preserved from the original string:
This is just a little test of the <b title='Member'>memb</b>. And another <b title='Member'>memb</b>, but not amemba to see if it gets picked up. <b title='Debut'>Deb</b> of course should also be caught here.<b title='Debut'>deb</b>!

I doubt it will perform better than just doing normal string.replace, so if performance is critical measure (refactoring a bit to use a compiled regex). You can do the regex version as:
var abbrsWithPipes = "(abbr1|abbr2)";
var regex = new Regex(abbrsWithPipes);
return regex.Replace(html, m => GetReplaceForAbbr(m.Value));
You need to implement GetReplaceForAbbr, which receives the specific abbr being matched.

I'm doing pretty exactly what you're looking for in my application and this works for me:
the parameter str is your content:
public static string GetGlossaryString(string str)
{
List<string> glossaryWords = GetGlossaryItems();//this collection would contain your abbreviations; you could just make it a Dictionary so you can have the abbreviation-full term pairs and use them in the loop below
str = string.Format(" {0} ", str);//quick and dirty way to also search the first and last word in the content.
foreach (string word in glossaryWords)
str = Regex.Replace(str, "([\\W])(" + word + ")([\\W])", "$1<span class='glossaryItem'>$2</span>$3", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
return str.Trim();
}