C#: Textbox to multiple strings

Question

Just a C# beginner here that just build his first application and now wants to make some changes to make it more ideal.

Today I got three textboxes where the users type in year, month and project number. When they click GO the application opens the respective folder: L:\2019\01\20190133

I would like to make it simpler, one textbox that gets divided into three strings (year, month, PO-number).

Any ideas? Sorry for the bad format of this post, feel free to correct/shame me :)

Current code:

    private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
        int tbyear;
        int tbmonth;
        int tbpnr;

        tbyear = int.Parse(textBox1.Text);
        tbmonth = int.Parse(textBox2.Text);
        tbpnr = int.Parse(textBox3.Text);

        string tby = textBox1.Text;
        string tbm = textBox2.Text;
        string tbnr = textBox3.Text;
        string path = Path.Combine(tby, tbm);
        string pathnr = textBox1.Text + textBox2.Text + textBox3.Text;
        
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("explorer.exe", @"L:\" + path + "\\" + pathnr);

When a user types in the combined information into the single text box, how do you expect the user to format the input? What characters are allowed in the input? — gunr2171
– gunr2171, Commented Nov 10, 2020 at 16:22
So the first 4 characters are the year. Characters 5 and 6 are the month. The rest of the characters are the PO number. Do you know about substring? — gunr2171
– gunr2171, Commented Nov 10, 2020 at 16:25

gunr2171 · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-10 16:30:51Z

3

As a very simple example of text extraction, use Substring.

string textFromInputControl = "20190133";
        
string year = textFromInputControl.Substring(0, 4); // start at index 0, 4 chars long
string month = textFromInputControl.Substring(4, 2); // start at index 4, 2 chars long
string poNumber = textFromInputControl.Substring(6); // start at index 6, all remaining chars
        
Console.WriteLine(year);     // "2019"
Console.WriteLine(month);    // "01"
Console.WriteLine(poNumber); // "33"

There are, of course, more complex ways of doing text extraction, like Regex. Use other tools when they are more appropriate.

answered Nov 10, 2020 at 16:30

gunr2171

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1 Comment

TheFM Over a year ago

It works perfectly! Thanks for next-level response time and good advice. Learned a lot that I probably should have fund by myself through Google..

Gonzalo Martinez · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-10 16:32:51Z

0

I think that it's fine as it is. If you have 3 differents inputs in 3 differents textboxes it's well designed. Imagine that one day you make a change and you don't want to join these types for generate your path: year\month\projectNumber. This would implies to change UI + Code. If you keep your input in only 1 text box, the changes only affect to code.

answered Nov 10, 2020 at 16:32

Gonzalo Martinez

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gunr2171 Over a year ago

A very legitimate reason to have one text box is when you are scanning a barcode, and the barcode contains all the information in one string.

Collen · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-10 16:33:10Z

0

I'm not so sure that entering all three items into one textbox is simpler from a user's perspective, but if you want to do that here's one way:

This assumes that the entries are separated in some way (we'll go with a space character).

var parts = textbox.Text.Split(' ');
var pathToOpen = $@"L:\{parts[0]}\{parts[1]}\{parts[2]}";

The above code splits the contents of the textbox by its ' ' delimiter, then formats them into a path in the format you provided.

Edit: going by the comments, you don't want to have a delimiter. In the case that your first two parts of the path are of fixed length, you can use the Substring method to extract them:

var year = textbox.Text.Substring(0, 4);
var month = textbox.Text.Substring(4, 2);
var rest = textbox.Text.Substring(6);

edited Nov 10, 2020 at 16:33

answered Nov 10, 2020 at 16:28

Collen

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1 Comment

TheFM Over a year ago

It's not separated by anything. I prefer the separate textboxes but unfortunately the merge is a user request :(

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