"Evaluate" a c# string

Question

I am reading a C# source file. When I encounter a string, I want to get it's value.
For instance, in the following example:

public class MyClass
{
  public MyClass()
  {
    string fileName = "C:\\Temp\\A Weird\"FileName";
  }
}

I would like to retrieve

C:\Temp\A Weird"FileName

Is there an existing procedure to do that?
Coding a solution with all the possible cases should be quite tricky (@, escape sequences. ...).
I am convinced such procedure exists...
I would like to have the dual function too (to inject a string into a C# source file)

Thanks in advance.
Philippe

P.S:
I gave an example with a filename, but I look for a solution working for all kinds of strings.

@"C:\Temp\A Weird FileName"; and than insert the " between Weird FileName. — Bassam Alugili
– Bassam Alugili, Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 10:20
What is it you want to achieve? A typical approach in language dependent strings is handling them separately. In your code that would be string fileName = MyStringBundle["TheWeirdFileNameString"], and then would StringBundle have all its strings stored with IDs in dedicated string files. — JOG
– JOG, Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 10:22
You just need a regex that will get you everything between " (inverted commas), unless its the one preceeded by backslash, like in your example — dark_ruby
– dark_ruby, Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 10:22

dcastro · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-12 10:38:13Z

2

I'm pretty sure you can use CodeDOM to read a C# code file and parse its elements. It generates a code tree, and then you can look for nodes representing strings.

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/2502/C-CodeDOM-parser

Other CodeDom parsers:

http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/14383/An-Expression-Parser-for-CodeDom

NRefactory: https://github.com/icsharpcode/NRefactory and http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/408663/Using-NRefactory-for-analyzing-Csharp-code

edited Sep 12, 2013 at 10:38

answered Sep 12, 2013 at 10:30

dcastro

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Adrian Wragg · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-12 10:34:07Z

1

There is a way of extracting these strings using a regular expression:

  ("(\\"|[^"])*")

This particular one works on your simple example and gives the filename (complete with leading and trailing quote characters); whether it would work on more complex ones I can't easily tell unfortunately.

For clarity, (\\"|[^"]) matches any character apart from ", except where it has a leading \ character.

answered Sep 12, 2013 at 10:34

Adrian Wragg

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dark_ruby · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-12 11:36:48Z

0

Just use ".*" Regex to match all string values, then remove trailing inverted commas and unescape it.

this will allow \" and "" characters inside your string

so both "C:\\Temp\\A Weird\"FileName" and "Hello ""World""" will match

edited Sep 12, 2013 at 11:36

answered Sep 12, 2013 at 10:30

dark_ruby

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