C# string splitting

Question

If I have a string: str1|str2|str3|srt4 and parse it with | as a delimiter. My output would be str1 str2 str3 str4.

But if I have a string: str1||str3|str4 output would be str1 str3 str4. What I'm looking for my output to be like is str1 null/blank str3 str4.

I hope this makes sense.

string createText = "srt1||str3|str4";
string[] txt = createText.Split(new[] { '|', ',' },
                   StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
if (File.Exists(path))
{
    //Console.WriteLine("{0} already exists.", path);
    File.Delete(path);
    // write to file.

    using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(path, true, Encoding.Unicode))
    {
        sw.WriteLine("str1:{0}",txt[0]);
        sw.WriteLine("str2:{0}",txt[1]);
        sw.WriteLine("str3:{0}",txt[2]);
        sw.WriteLine("str4:{0}",txt[3]);
    }
}

Output

str1:str1
str2:str3
str3:str4
str4:"blank"

Thats not what i'm looking for. This is what I would like to code:

str1:str1
str2:"blank"
str3:str3
str4:str4

You should look up what the StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries flag does. — Matthew Iselin
– Matthew Iselin, Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 4:13

John Kugelman · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-16 03:54:58Z

9

Try this one:

str.Split('|')

Without StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries passed, it'll work as you want.

edited Sep 16, 2010 at 3:54

John Kugelman

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answered Sep 16, 2010 at 3:33

Mehrdad Afshari

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2 Comments

Cheng Chen Over a year ago

I misread the question, what I thought OP want is what he doesn't want..haha.sorry I'll change vote-down to vote-up in 8 minutes because SO locks my vote function now :(

Cheng Chen Over a year ago

SO tells me "You last voted on this answer 14 mins ago Your vote is now locked in unless this answer is edited". So I can't vote to your answer until you edit it? Sorry for my mistake.

Lee · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-16 03:34:14Z

8

this should do the trick...

string s = "str1||str3|str4";
string[] parts = s.Split('|');

answered Sep 16, 2010 at 3:34

Lee

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Comments

Margus · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-16 04:16:22Z

4

The simplest way is to use Quantification:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
...
String [] parts = new Regex("[|]+").split("str1|str2|str3|srt4");

The "+" gets rid of it.

From Wikipedia : "+" The plus sign indicates that there is one or more of the preceding element. For example, ab+c matches "abc", "abbc", "abbbc", and so on, but not "ac".

Form msdn: The Regex.Split methods are similar to the String.Split method, except Split splits the string at a delimiter determined by a regular expression instead of a set of characters. The input string is split as many times as possible. If pattern is not found in the input string, the return value contains one element whose value is the original input string.

Additional wish can be done with:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace ConsoleApplication1 {
    class Program{
        static void Main(string[] args){
            String[] parts = "str1||str2|str3".Replace(@"||", "|\"blank\"|").Split(@"|");

            foreach (string s in parts)
                Console.WriteLine(s);
        }
    }
}

edited Sep 16, 2010 at 4:16

answered Sep 16, 2010 at 3:40

Margus

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1 Comment

Lee Over a year ago

This may be a "cool" way to use Regex, but it's a very round-about solution to the question that was posed. The OP simply wanted to preserve empty segments, and the Split function does this by default -- unless you pass the option StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries. So the OP could have solved the original problem by simply removing the unneeded option from the call to Split in the original example code. Building and compiling a regular expression is way more overhead (and way more complication) than is needed for this case.

slugster · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-16 03:40:52Z

1

Try something like this:

string result = "str1||str3|srt4";
List<string> parsedResult = result.Split('|').Select(x => string.IsNullOrEmpty(x) ? "null" : x).ToList();

when using the Split() the resulting string in the array will be empty (not null). In this example i have tested for it and replaced it with the actual word null so you can see how to substitute in another value.

answered Sep 16, 2010 at 3:40

slugster

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