I've set MaskedTextBox's Mask to: "Fl\air H\al ###.## , something here: ####.##"
When user inputs the value final text looks something like this:
Flair Hal 987.67 , something here: 1234.12
What will be the best way to extract 976.67 and 1234.12 from the MaskedTextBox's Text. I am looking for a List which will have all the values of the mask (976.67, 1234.12).
There can be any number of masks in the mask string and the mask can be any valid mask.
I am thinking of first removing '\' from the Mask and then in a for loop keep comparing the Mask with the Text and detect changes and add them to the List. But this doesnt sound good to me and i think there probably is a better way of doing it.
There are four values of the mask in your example: 987, 67, 1234, 12. The fact that blocks separated by a . are treated as one is your own logic, so I think you will just have to write code to get the information yourself.
Have a look at the MaskedTextProvider property of the MaskedTextBox, and its EditPositions property. The EditPositions give you the positions within the Text that the user could enter.
Well i found out that there is no good way of doing it. As adrianbanks said i have to code myself to get this information.
I have written my own usercontrol which uses combination of labels and maskedtexboxes to get the input.
I use curly braces to indicate where i wan the masked textbox and the user control puts one masked textbox per pair of curly braces.
"Flair Hal {###.##} , something here: {####.##}"
Then I can use the values collection which has the values for the masks.
I would think that you would be to use TextMaskFormat to remove the literals and prompt characters from the .Text property. That way you'd only get the numbers (and spaces).
Use a regular expression. The following regex will work for your example, but you may have to tweak it depending on your actual mask:
\d*[.]\d{2}
Related
We have a requirement to display bank routing/account data that is masked with asterisks, except for the last 4 numbers. It seemed simple enough until I found this in unit testing:
string.Format("{0:****1234}",61101234)
is properly displayed as: "****1234"
but
string.Format("{0:****0052}",16000052)
is incorrectly displayed (due to the zeros??): "****1600005252""
If you use the following in C# it works correctly, but I am unable to use this because DevExpress automatically wraps it with "{0: ... }" when you set the displayformat without the curly brackets:
string.Format("****0052",16000052)
Can anyone think of a way to get this format to work properly inside curly brackets (with the full 8 digit number passed in)?
UPDATE: The string.format above is only a way of testing the problem I am trying to solve. It is not the finished code. I have to pass to DevExpress a string format inside braces in order for the routing number to be formatted correctly.
It's a shame that you haven't included the code which is building the format string. It's very odd to have the format string depend on the data in the way that it looks like you have.
I would not try to do this in a format string; instead, I'd write a method to convert the credit card number into an "obscured" string form, quite possibly just using Substring and string concatenation. For example:
public static string ObscureFirstFourCharacters(string input)
{
// TODO: Argument validation
return "****" + input.Substring(4);
}
(It's not clear what the data type of your credit card number is. If it's a numeric type and you need to convert it to a string first, you need to be careful to end up with a fixed-size string, left-padded with zeroes.)
I think you are looking for something like this:
string.Format("{0:****0000}", 16000052);
But I have not seen that with the * inline like that. Without knowing better I probably would have done:
string.Format("{0}{1}", "****", str.Substring(str.Length-4, 4);
Or even dropping the format call if I knew the length.
These approaches are worthwhile to look through: Mask out part first 12 characters of string with *?
As you are alluding to in the comments, this should also work:
string.Format("{0:****####}", 16000052);
The difference is using the 0's will display a zero if no digit is present, # will not. Should be moot in your situation.
If for some reason you want to print the literal zeros, use this:
string.Format("{0:****\0\052}", 16000052);
But note that this is not doing anything with your input at all.
Is there anyway to reconcile the two ? Ie when i set the text of a richtextform from a string, a given characters index in the string does not match the position of it in the textbox.
Make sure the WordWrap property is False.
On extremely long lines you're going to run into RightMargin. It is not infinite, the maximum right margin depends on the font size.
It seems to be okay, with this my sample text:
"Provide details and share your research. Avoid statements based solely on opinion; only make statements you can back up with an appropriate reference, or personal experiences"
Using the code:
richTextBox1.Text.IndexOf("back up");
textBox1.Text.IndexOf("back up");
Both have results of: 112
It seems you are using the Rtf property of the RichTextBox that contains extra tags for its formatting?
I'm working on a text entry application that uses regular expressions to validate user input. The goal is to allow keypresses that fit a certain RegEx while rejecting invalid characters. One issue I've run into is that when a user starts inputting information they may create a string that doesn't yet match the given regex, but could cause a match in the future. These strings get erroneously rejected. Here's an example - given the following regex for inputting date information:
(0?[1-9]|10|11|12)/(0?[1-9]|[12]\\d|30|31)/\\d{2}\\d{2}
A user may begin entering "1/" which could be a valid date, but RegEx.IsMatch() will return false and my code ends up rejecting the string. Is there a way to "optimistically" test strings against a regular expression so that possible or partial matches are allowed?
Bonus: For this RegEx in particular there are some sequences which cause required characters. For example, if the user types "2/15" the only possible valid character they could enter next is "/". Is it possible to detect those scenarios so that the required characters could be automatically entered for the user to ease input?
What you can do is anchor your RegExp (i.e. adding ^ and $, as in start/end of line) and make some component optionnal for validation, but strictly defined if present.
Something looking like this:
^(0?[1-9]|10|11|12)(/((0?[1-9]|[12]\\d|30|31)(/(\\d{2}(\\d{2})?)?)?)?)?$
I do realize it looks horrible but as far as I know there is no way to tell the regexp engine to validate as long as the string satisfies the beginning of the regexp pattern.
In my opinion, the best way to achieve what you want to do is to create separate inputs for day/month/date and check their value when leaving the text field.
It also provides a better visibility and user-experience, as I believe no one likes to be prevented from typing certain characters into a text field with or without noticing them disappear as they type or having slashes inserted automatically and without notice.
Have you ever used and app or form that worked that way, simply refusing to accept any keypress it didn't like? If the answer is Yes, did it blow an electronic raspberry each time you pressed a wrong key?
If you really need to validate the input before the form is submitted, use a passive feedback mechanism like a red border around the textfield that disappears the regex matches the input. Also, make sure there's a Help button or a tooltip nearby to provide constructive feedback.
Of course, the best option would be to use a dedicated control like a date-entry widget. But whatever you do, don't do it in such a a way that it feels like you're playing guessing games with the user.
I'm facing a simple problem that bugs me...
I have a MaskedTextBox and I want the user to be able to enter 3 numbers at the end :
"My Masked Text Box : XXX"
This text will be translated. The problem is, this control uses Microsoft's recipe to validate the input and in this example, the final display will look like this :
"My M_sked Text Box : _"
The letter 'a' is considered like a control caracter instead of a simple text caracter. I can backslash it but when the text is translated I have to do it again and I think it's ridiculous to have to do something like that...
I hope I'm being clear...
Thanks in advance for your help !
The 'a' needs to be quoted as a literal. The Mask should be something like:
My M\asked Text Box : 000
You should use '9' rather than '0' as the placeholder for an optional numerical character.
Of course any other of the characters that match mask options should be 'literal' too.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.maskedtextbox.mask.aspx
After reading the comments I'd like to add another suggestion (you clearly understood about literals -- the problem is your translation.)
Would it be feasible to run the translated text strings through a filter that put literal-quotes in where possible? It's not that nice a solution, because if Microsoft added new control characters it'll break your filter, but I think it would work.
HI,
I have the following problem- the following text is in a rich text box .
The world is [[wonderful]] today .
If the user provides two brackets before and afer a word, as in the case of wonderful , the word in brackets, in this case, wonderful shall change to a link, ( with a green colour ) .
I am having problems in getting the sequence of the keystrokes, ie. how do I know that the user has entered [[ , so I can start parsing the rest of the text which follows it .
I can get it by handlng KeyDown, event, and a list , but it does not look to be elegant at all.
Please let me know what should be a proper way.
Thanks,
Sujay
You have two approaches that I can think of off-hand.
One is, as you suggest, maintain the current state with a list—was this key a bracket? was the last key a bracket?—and update on the fly.
The other approach would be to simply handle the TextChanged event and re-scan the text for the [[text-here]] pattern and update as appropriate.
The first requires more bookkeeping but will be much faster for longer text. The second approach is easier and can probably be done with a decent regex, but it will get slower as your text gets longer. If you know you have some upper limit, like 256 characters, then you're probably fine. But if you're expecting novels, probably not such a great idea.
I would recommend Google'ing: "richtextbox syntax highlighter", there are so many people that have done this, and there is a lot behind the scenes to make it work.
I dare myself to say, that EVERY SINGLE simple solution have major drawbacks. Proper way would be to use some control that already does this "syntax highlighting" and extending it to your syntax. It is also most likely the easiest way.
You can search free .net controls in Codeplex. link
I would try handling the KeyDown, and checking for the closing bracket instead "]". Once you receive one, you could check the last character in your text box for the second ], and if it's there, just replace out the last few characters.
This eliminates the need for maintaining state (ie: the list). As soon as the second ] was typed, the block would change to a link instantly.
Keeping a list will be rather complex I think. What if the user types a '[' character, clicks somewhere else in the text and then types a '[' character again. The user has then typed two consecutive '[' characters but in completely different parts of the text. Also, you may want to be able to handle text inserted from the clipboard as well.
I think the safest way is to analyze the full text and do what should be done from that context, using RegEx or some other technique.
(Sorry, don't have enough reputation to add comments yet, so have to add a new answer). As suggested by jeffamaphone I'd handle the TextChanged event and rescan the text each time - but to keep the cost constant, just scan a few characters ahead of the current cursor position instead of reading the entire text.
Trying to intercept the keystrokes and maintain an internal state is a bad approach - it is very easy for your idea of what has happened to get out of sync with the control you are monitoring and cause weird problems. (and how do you handle clicks? Alt-tab? Pastes? arrow keys? Other applicatiosn grabbing focus? Too many special cases to worry about...)