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String comparison fails even when visually checked

I added a function to my application recently that reads a date from a downloaded file and finds the difference in days between current date and the date from the file. When done, it is displayed in a label in one of my forums.
There is an exception: if the string in the file equals "Lifetime", it should not process it as a date and follow alternate logic. But when I try to check if the string is "Lifetime", it does not return true, even if the string = "Lifetime".
EDIT: I fixed the FormatException with help from Nisarg. Now, my labels aren't changing to the values. This is the problem.
EDIT2: I feel stupid. I found out that I was initiating Main twice in one function, then using main1 to switch between forms and main to set the labels.
This is why the labels weren't working right. Thanks Nisarg and all other contributors.
Code example:
string subScript = File.ReadAllText(Path.GetTempPath() + txtUsername.Text + ".txt");
Main main = new Main();
double dSubLeft;
main.dateLabel.Text = subScript;
if (subScript == "Lifetime") // it bypasses this, apparently blank
{
main.daysLeftLabel.Text = "Expires: Never";
}
if (subScript != "Lifetime") //Goes here and throws error saying subScript is not valid DateTime
{
dSubLeft = Math.Round(Convert.ToDouble(Convert.ToString(((Convert.ToDateTime(subScript)) - DateTime.Now).TotalDays)));
string sSubLeft = Convert.ToString(dSubLeft);
main.daysLeftLabel.Text = "Expires: " + sSubLeft + " Days";
}

While using files you often get trailing blank spaces or newline characters. Try trimming the string before comparing it to Lifetime:
subScript = subScript.Trim().Trim(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray());
Another (less likely) problem could be with the comparison itself. In C# the comparison in case-sensitive. So if you're comparing lifetime with Lifetime they are considered unequal. You should rather use case-insensitive comparison:
if(string.Equals(subScript, "Lifetime", StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
OR
if(subScript.ToLower() == "lifetime")
You could also check if the subScript you are getting from the file is a valid date or not using DateTime.TryParse.
string subScript = File.ReadAllText(Path.GetTempPath() + txtUsername.Text + ".txt");
Main main = new Main();
double dSubLeft;
main.dateLabel.Text = subScript;
DateTime subScriptDate;
if(!DateTime.TryParse(subScript, out subScriptDate))
{
main.daysLeftLabel.Text = "Expires: Never";
}
else //Goes here and throws error saying subScript is not valid DateTime
{
dSubLeft = Math.Round(Convert.ToDouble(Convert.ToString((subScriptDate - DateTime.Now).TotalDays)));
string sSubLeft = Convert.ToString(dSubLeft);
main.daysLeftLabel.Text = "Expires: " + sSubLeft + " Days";
}

I think it is because main is the starting point of a program in C#, make another methodname if you don´t want it to reset things from where the program is supposed to start from
That is my guess only, make a breakpoint in the beginning of your code and check through what info you get from each row in the code

Almost certainly, the actual content of the string is not actually the string "Lifetime". Probably because of white-space on either side. Try trimming.
Relevant edit:
if (subscript.Trim() == "Lifetime")
{
main.daysLeftLabel.Text = "Expires: Never";
}
else // don't retest for the opposite condition
{
...
As you can see, this thing is awfully fragile, because the string could still be many things that aren't a valid DateTime. Smells like homework, but there you go...

i think you should use
if(string.Equals(subScript, "Lifetime", StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
{
//statement
}
else
{
//statement
}

How to get rid of unwanted spaces after using ToString() in C#?

This might be a problem with Session and not ToString(), I'm not sure.
I have two .aspx pages and I want to pass an IP address from a datatable from one page to the other. When I do this, spaces get added that I don't want. The simple version of the code is this:
first .aspx page
int num = DropDownList1.SelectedIndex;
DataView tempDV = SqlDataSource2.Select(DataSourceSelectArguments.Empty) as DataView;
Session["camera"] = tempDV.Table.Rows[num].ItemArray[2];
Response.Redirect("test.aspx");
test.aspx page
string ipCamAdd = Session["camera"].ToString();
TextBox1.Text = "http://" + ipCamAdd + "/jpg/image.jpg?resolution=320x240";
what I want to print is
http ://ipadd/jpg/image.jpg?resolution=320x240
but what prints out is
http//ipaddress /jpg/image.jpg?resolution=320x240
how can I fix this?
Also, I asked this question hoping someone could tell me why this is happening as well. Sorry for the mistake.

Try this:
string ipCamAdd = Session["camera"].Trim().ToString();
For the valid concern, Session["camera"] could be null, add function such as the following to your code
static string ToSafeString(string theVal)
{
string theAns;
theAns = (theVal==null ? "" : theVal);
return theAns;
}
Then use:
string ipCamAdd = Session["camera"].ToSafeString().Trim();

You can use string.Replace if you just want to get rid of the spaces:
TextBox1.Text = "http://" + (ipCamAdd ?? "").Replace(" ", "") + "/jpg/image.jpg?resolution=320x240";

Trim the result before setting to session.
Session["camera"] = tempDV.Table.Rows[num].ItemArray[2].Trim();
Seems In SQL your data type is char(*) if you convert the data type to varchar and re enter data, you wont get any additional spaces

Getting substring between two separators in an arbitrary position

I have following string:
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
The / character is the separator between various elements in the string. I need to get the last two elements of the string. I have following code for this purpose. This works fine. Is there any faster/simpler code for this?
CODE
static void Main()
{
string component = String.Empty;
string version = String.Empty;
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(source))
{
String[] partsOfSource = source.Split('/');
if (partsOfSource != null)
{
if (partsOfSource.Length > 2)
{
component = partsOfSource[partsOfSource.Length - 2];
}
if (partsOfSource.Length > 1)
{
version = partsOfSource[partsOfSource.Length - 1];
}
}
}
Console.WriteLine(component);
Console.WriteLine(version);
Console.Read();
}

Why no regular expression? This one is fairly easy:
.*/(?<component>.*)/(?<version>.*)$
You can even label your groups so for your match all you need to do is:
component = myMatch.Groups["component"];
version = myMatch.Groups["version"];

The following should be faster, as it only scans as much of the string as it needs to to find two / and it doesn't bother splitting up the whole string:
string component = "";
string version = "";
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
int last = source.LastIndexOf('/');
if (last != -1)
{
int penultimate = source.LastIndexOf('/', last - 1);
version = source.Substring(last + 1);
component = source.Substring(penultimate + 1, last - penultimate - 1);
}
That said, as with all performance questions: profile! Try the two side-by-side with a big list of real-life inputs and see which is fastest.
(Also, this will leave empty strings rather than throw an exception if there is no slash in the input... but throw if source is null, lazy me.)

Your approach is the most suitable one given that your are looking for substrings at a particular index. A LINQ expression to do the same in this case will likely not improve the code or its readability.
For reference, there is some great information from Microsoft here on working with strings and LINQ. In particular see the article here which covers some examples with both LINQ and RegEx.
EDIT: +1 For Matt's named group within RegEx approach... that's the nicest solution I've seen.

Your code mostly looks fine. A couple of points to note:
String.Split() will never return null, so you don't need the null check on it.
If the source string has fewer than two / characters, how would you deal with that? (The Original Post was updated to address this)
Do you really want to just output empty strings if your source string is null or empty (or invalid)? If you have specific expectations about the nature of the input, you may want to consider failing fast when those expectations are not met.

You could try something like this but I doubt it would be much faster. You could do some meassurements with System.Diagnostics.StopWatch to see if you feel the need.
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
int index1 = source.LastIndexOf('/');
string last = source.Substring(index1 + 1);
string substring = source.Substring(0, index1);
int index2 = substring.LastIndexOf('/');
string secondLast = substring.Substring(index2 + 1);

I would try
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
var components = source.Split('/').Reverse().Take(2);
String last = string.Empty;
var enumerable = components as string[] ?? components.ToArray();
if (enumerable.Count() == 2)
last = enumerable.FirstOrDefault();
var secondLast = enumerable.LastOrDefault();
Hope this will help

you can retrieve the last two words using the process as below:
string source = "Test/Company/Business/Department/Logs.tvs/v1";
String[] partsOfSource = source.Split('/');
if(partsOfSourch.length>2)
for(int i=partsOfSourch.length-2;i<=partsOfSource.length-1;i++)
console.writeline(partsOfSource[i]);

Extracting data from plain text string

I am trying to process a report from a system which gives me the following code
000=[GEN] OK {Q=1 M=1 B=002 I=3e5e65656-e5dd-45678-b785-a05656569e}
I need to extract the values between the curly brackets {} and save them in to variables. I assume I will need to do this using regex or similar? I've really no idea where to start!! I'm using c# asp.net 4.
I need the following variables
param1 = 000
param2 = GEN
param3 = OK
param4 = 1 //Q
param5 = 1 //M
param6 = 002 //B
param7 = 3e5e65656-e5dd-45678-b785-a05656569e //I
I will name the params based on what they actually mean. Can anyone please help me here? I have tried to split based on spaces, but I get the other garbage with it!
Thanks for any pointers/help!

If the format is pretty constant, you can use .NET string processing methods to pull out the values, something along the lines of
string line =
"000=[GEN] OK {Q=1 M=1 B=002 I=3e5e65656-e5dd-45678-b785-a05656569e}";
int start = line.IndexOf('{');
int end = line.IndexOf('}');
string variablePart = line.Substring(start + 1, end - start);
string[] variables = variablePart.Split(' ');
foreach (string variable in variables)
{
string[] parts = variable.Split('=');
// parts[0] holds the variable name, parts[1] holds the value
}
Wrote this off the top of my head, so there may be an off-by-one error somewhere. Also, it would be advisable to add error checking e.g. to make sure the input string has both a { and a }.

I would suggest a regular expression for this type of work.
var objRegex = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(#"^(\d+)=\[([A-Z]+)\] ([A-Z]+) \{Q=(\d+) M=(\d+) B=(\d+) I=([a-z0-9\-]+)\}$");
var objMatch = objRegex.Match("000=[GEN] OK {Q=1 M=1 B=002 I=3e5e65656-e5dd-45678-b785-a05656569e}");
if (objMatch.Success)
{
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[1].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[2].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[3].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[4].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[5].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[6].ToString());
Console.WriteLine(objMatch.Groups[7].ToString());
}
I've just tested this out and it works well for me.

Use a regular expression.
Quick and dirty attempt:
(?<ID1>[0-9]*)=\[(?<GEN>[a-zA-Z]*)\] OK {Q=(?<Q>[0-9]*) M=(?<M>[0-9]*) B=(?<B>[0-9]*) I=(?<I>[a-zA-Z0-9\-]*)}
This will generate named groups called ID1, GEN, Q, M, B and I.
Check out the MSDN docs for details on using Regular Expressions in C#.
You can use Regex Hero for quick C# regex testing.

You can use String.Split
string[] parts = s.Split(new string[] {"=[", "] ", " {Q=", " M=", " B=", " I=", "}"},
StringSplitOptions.None);

This solution breaks up your report code into segments and stores the desired values into an array.
The regular expression matches one report code segment at a time and stores the appropriate values in the "Parsed Report Code Array".
As your example implied, the first two code segments are treated differently than the ones after that. I made the assumption that it is always the first two segments that are processed differently.
private static string[] ParseReportCode(string reportCode) {
const int FIRST_VALUE_ONLY_SEGMENT = 3;
const int GRP_SEGMENT_NAME = 1;
const int GRP_SEGMENT_VALUE = 2;
Regex reportCodeSegmentPattern = new Regex(#"\s*([^\}\{=\s]+)(?:=\[?([^\s\]\}]+)\]?)?");
Match matchReportCodeSegment = reportCodeSegmentPattern.Match(reportCode);
List<string> parsedCodeSegmentElements = new List<string>();
int segmentCount = 0;
while (matchReportCodeSegment.Success) {
if (++segmentCount < FIRST_VALUE_ONLY_SEGMENT) {
string segmentName = matchReportCodeSegment.Groups[GRP_SEGMENT_NAME].Value;
parsedCodeSegmentElements.Add(segmentName);
}
string segmentValue = matchReportCodeSegment.Groups[GRP_SEGMENT_VALUE].Value;
if (segmentValue.Length > 0) parsedCodeSegmentElements.Add(segmentValue);
matchReportCodeSegment = matchReportCodeSegment.NextMatch();
}
return parsedCodeSegmentElements.ToArray();
}

different format into one single line Interop.word

I've been trying to figure out how to insert 2 different formats into the same paragraph using interop.word in c# like this:
hello planet earth here's what I want to do

Assuming you have your document defined as oDoc, the following code should get you the desired result:
Word.Paragraph oPara = oDoc.Content.Paragraphs.Add(ref oMissing);
oPara.Range.Text = "hello planet earth here's what I want to do";
object oStart = oPara.Range.Start + 13;
object oEnd = oPara.Range.Start + 18;
Word.Range rBold = oDoc.Range(ref oStart, ref oEnd);
rBold.Bold = 1;

I had to modify Dennis' answer a little to get it to work for me.
What I'm doing it totally automated, so I have to only work with variables.
private void InsertMultiFormatParagraph(string text, int size, int spaceAfter = 10) {
var para = docWord.Content.Paragraphs.Add(ref objMissing);
para.Range.Text = text;
// Explicitly set this to "not bold"
para.Range.Font.Bold = 0;
para.Range.Font.Size = size;
para.Format.SpaceAfter = spaceAfter;
var start = para.Range.Start;
var end = para.Range.Start + text.IndexOf(":");
var rngBold = docWord.Range(ref objStart, ref objEnd);
rngBold.Bold = 1;
para.Range.InsertParagraphAfter();
}
The main difference that made me want to make this post was that the Paragraph should be inserted AFTER the font is changed. My initial thought was to insert it after setting the SpaceAfter property, but then the objStart and objEnd values were tossing "OutOfRange" Exceptions. It was a little counter-intuitive, so I wanted to make sure everyone knew.

The following code seemed to work the best for me when formatting a particular selection within a paragraph. Using Word's built in "find" function to make a selection, then formatting only the selected text. This approach would only work well if the text to select is a unique string within the selection. But for most situations I have run across, this seems to work.
oWord.Selection.Find.Text = Variable_Containing_Text_to_Select; // sets the variable for find and select
oWord.Selection.Find.Execute(); // Executes find and select
oWord.Selection.Font.Bold = 1; // Modifies selection
oWord.Selection.Collapse(); // Clears selection
Hope this helps someone!

I know this post is old, but it came out in almost all my searches. The answer below is in case someone, like me, wants to do this for more than one word in a sentence. In this case, I loop through a string array of variables that contain strings and change that text to bold--modifing #joshman1019
string[] makeBold = new string[4] {a, b, c, d};
foreach (string s in makeBold)
{
wApp.Selection.Find.Text = s; //changes with each iteration
wApp.Selection.Find.Execute();
wApp.Selection.Font.Bold = 1;
wApp.Selection.Collapse(); //used to 'clear' the selection
wApp.Selection.Find.ClearFormatting();
}
So, each string represented by the variable will be bold. So if a = "hello world", then Hello World is made bold in the Word doc. Hope it saves someone some time.

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I'd post here anyway for those that come across it via Google (like I did). I got most of the way to a solution with krillgar's approach, but I had trouble because some of my text contains newlines. Accordingly, this modification worked best for me:
private void WriteText(string text)
{
var para = doc.Content.Paragraphs.Add();
var start = para.Range.Start;
var end = para.Range.Start + text.IndexOf(":");
para.Range.Text = text;
para.Range.Font.Bold = 0;
para.Range.InsertParagraphAfter();
if(text.Contains(":")){
var rngBold = doc.Range(start, end);
rngBold.Bold = 1;
}
}
The key difference is that I calculate start and end earlier in the function. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think if your new text has newlines in it, the later calculation of start/end messes something up.
And obviously my solution is intended for text with the format:
Label: Data
where Label is to be bolded.

Consider usage of Range.Collapse eventually with Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.WdCollapseDirection.wdCollapseEnd as parameter.
That would allow next text to have formatting different than previous text (and next text formatting will not affect formatting of previous one).