Develop Reference

Editing string in C#

given a string with words separated by spaces how would you go about merging two words if one of them is made by one character only ? An example should clarify:
"a bcd tttt" => "abcd tttt"
"abc d hhhh" => "abcd hhhh"
I would like to merge the single characer word with the one on the left in all cases where it is not the first word in the string, in this case i would like to merge it with the one on the right.
I am trying to loop through the string and create some logic but it turned out to be more complex than i was expecting.

Try the below program's approach:
using System;
using System.Text;
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
var delimiter=new char[]{' '};
var stringToMerge="abc d hhhh";
var splitArray=stringToMerge.Split(delimiter);
var stringBuilder=new StringBuilder();
for(int wordIndex=0;wordIndex<splitArray.Length;wordIndex++)
{
var word=splitArray[wordIndex];
if(wordIndex!=0 && word.Length>1)
{
stringBuilder.Append(" ");
}
stringBuilder.Append(word);
}
Console.WriteLine(stringBuilder.ToString());
}
}
Basically, you split the string to words, then using StringBuilder, build a new string, inserting a space before a word only if the word is larger than one character.

One way to approach this is to first use string.Split(' ') to get an array of words, which is easier to deal with.
Then you can loop though the words, handling single character words by concatenating them with the previous word, with special handling for the first word.
One such approach:
public static void Main()
{
string data = "abcd hhhh";
var words = data.Split(' ');
var sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < words.Length; ++i)
{
var word = words[i];
if (word.Length == 1)
{
sb.Append(word);
if (i == 0 && i < words.Length - 1) // Single character first word is special case: Merge with next word.
sb.Append(words[++i]); // Note the "++i" to increment the loop counter, skipping the next word.
}
else
{
sb.Append(' ' + word);
}
}
var result = sb.ToString();
Console.WriteLine(result);
}
Note that this will concatenate multiple instances of single-letter words, so that "a b c d e" will result in "abcde" and "ab c d e fg" will result in "abcde fg". You don't actually specify what should happen in this case.

if you want to do it with a plain for loop and string walking:
using System;
using System.Text;
public class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine(MergeOrphant("bcd a tttt") == "bcda tttt");
Console.WriteLine(MergeOrphant("bcd a tttt a") == "bcda tttta");
Console.WriteLine(MergeOrphant("a bcd tttt") == "abcd tttt");
Console.WriteLine(MergeOrphant("a b") == "ab");
}
private static string MergeOrphant(string source)
{
var stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
for (var i = 0; i < source.Length; i++)
{
if (i == 1 && char.IsWhiteSpace(source[i]) && char.IsLetter(source[i - 1])) {
i++;
}
if (i > 0 && char.IsWhiteSpace(source[i]) && char.IsLetter(source[i - 1]) && char.IsLetter(source[i + 1]) && (i + 2 == source.Length || char.IsWhiteSpace(source[i + 2])) )
{
i++;
}
stringBuilder.Append(source[i]);
}
return stringBuilder.ToString();
}
}

Quite short with Regex.
string foo = "a bcd b tttt";
foo = Regex.Replace(foo, #"^(\w) (\w{2,})", "$1$2");
foo = Regex.Replace(foo, #"(\w{2,}) (\w)\b", "$1$2");
Be aware \w is [a-zA-Z0-9_] if you need an other definition you have to define you own character class.

My answer would not be the best practice but it works for your second case, but still you should be clear about the letter merging rules.
public static void Main()
{
Console.WriteLine(Edit("abc d hhhh") == "abcd hhhh");
Console.WriteLine(Edit("abc d hhhh a") == "abcd hhhha");
Console.WriteLine(Edit("abc d hhhh a b") == "abcd hhhhab");
Console.WriteLine(Edit("abc d hhhh a def g") == "abcd hhhha defg");
}
public static string Edit(string str)
{
var result = string.Empty;
var split = str.Split(' ', StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
for (int i = 0; i < split.Length; i++)
{
if(i == 0)
result += split[i];
else
{
if (i > 0 && split[i].Length == 1)
{
result += split[i];
}
else
{
result += $" {split[i]}";
}
}
}
return result;
}
As I have mentioned above, this does not work for your 1st case which is : Edit("a bcd") would not generate "abcd".

Expanding on Matthew's answer,
If you don't want the extra space in the output you can change the last line to;
Console.WriteLine(result.TrimStart(' '));

c# get the first ';' after parentheses

i feel dumb for asking a most likely silly question.
I am helping someone getting the results he wishes for his custom compiler that reads all lines of an xml file in one string so it will look like below, and since he wants it to "Support" to call variables inside the array worst case scenario would look like below:
"Var1 = [5,4,3,2]; Var2 = [2,8,6,Var1;4];"
What i need is to find the first ";" after "[" and "]" and split it, so i stand with this:
"Var1 = [5,4,3,2];
It will also have to support multiple "[", "]" for example:
"Var2 = [5,Var1,[4],2];"
EDIT: There may also be Data in between the last "]" and ";"
For example:
"Var2 = [5,[4],2]Var1;
What can i do here? Im kind of stuck.

You can try regular expressions, e.g.
string source = "Var1 = [5,4,3,2]; Var2 = [2,8,6,Var1;4];";
// 1. final (or the only) chunk doesn't necessary contain '];':
// "abc" -> "abc"
// 2. chunk has at least one symbol except '];'
string pattern = ".+?(][a-zA-Z0-9]*;|$)";
var items = Regex
.Matches(source, pattern)
.OfType<Match>()
.Select(match => match.Value)
.ToArray();
Console.Write(string.Join(Environment.NewLine, items));
Outcome:
Var1 = [5,4,3,2]abc123;
Var2 = [2,8,6,Var1;4];

^([^;]+);
This regex should work for all.
You can use it like here:
string[] lines =
{
"Var1 = [5,4,3,2]; Var2 = [2,8,6,Var1;4];",
"Var2 = [5,[4],2]Var1; Var2 = [2,8,6,Var1;4];"
};
Regex pattern = new Regex(#"^([^;]+);");
foreach (string s in lines){
Match match = pattern.Match(s);
if (match.Success)
{
Console.WriteLine(match.Value);
}
}
The explanation is:
^ means starts with and is [^;] anything but a semicolon
+ means repeated one or more times and is ; followed by a semicolon
This will find Var1 = [5,4,3,2]; as well as Var1 = [5,4,3,2];
You can see the output HERE

public static string Extract(string str, char splitOn)
{
var split = false;
var count = 0;
var bracketCount = 0;
foreach (char c in str)
{
count++;
if (split && c == splitOn)
return str.SubString(0, count);
if (c == '[')
{
bracketCount++;
split = false;
}
else if (c == ']')
{
bracketCount--;
if (bracketCount == 0)
{
split = true;
}
else if (bracketCount < 0)
throw new FormatException(); //?
}
}
return str;
}

Convert Dash-Separated String to camelCase via C#

I have a large XML file that contain tag names that implement the dash-separated naming convention. How can I use C# to convert the tag names to the camel case naming convention?
The rules are:
1. Convert all characters to lower case
2. Capitalize the first character after each dash
3. Remove all dashes
Example
Before Conversion
<foo-bar>
<a-b-c></a-b-c>
</foo-bar>
After Conversion
<fooBar>
<aBC></aBC>
</fooBar>
Here's a code example that works, but it's slow to process - I'm thinking that there is a better way to accomplish my goal.
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input)
{
input = input.ToLower();
char[] ca = input.ToCharArray();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for(int i = 0; i < ca.Length; i++)
{
if(ca[i] == '-')
{
string t = ca[i + 1].ToString().toUpper();
sb.Append(t);
i++;
}
else
{
sb.Append(ca[i].ToString());
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}

The reason your original code was slow is because you're calling ToString all over the place unnecessarily. There's no need for that. There's also no need for the intermediate array of char. The following should be much faster, and faster than the version that uses String.Split, too.
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
bool caseFlag = false;
for (int i = 0; i < input.Length; ++i)
{
char c = input[i];
if (c == '-')
{
caseFlag = true;
}
else if (caseFlag)
{
sb.Append(char.ToUpper(c));
caseFlag = false;
}
else
{
sb.Append(char.ToLower(c));
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
I'm not going to claim that the above is the fastest possible. In fact, there are several obvious optimizations that could save some time. But the above is clean and clear: easy to understand.
The key is the caseFlag, which you use to indicate that the next character copied should be set to upper case. Also note that I don't automatically convert the entire string to lower case. There's no reason to, since you'll be looking at every character anyway and can do the appropriate conversion at that time.
The idea here is that the code doesn't do any more work than it absolutely has to.

For completeness, here's also a regular expression one-liner (inspred by this JavaScript answer):
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input) =>
Regex.Replace(input, "-.", m => m.Value.ToUpper().Substring(1));
It replaces all occurrences of -x with x converted to upper case.
Special cases:
If you want lower-case all other characters, replace input with input.ToLower() inside the expression:
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input) =>
Regex.Replace(input.ToLower(), "-.", m => m.Value.ToUpper().Substring(1));
If you want to support multiple dashes between words (dash--case) and have all of the dashes removed (dashCase), replace - with -+ in the regular expression (to greedily match all sequences of dashes) and keep only the final character:
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input) =>
Regex.Replace(input, "-+.", m => m.Value.ToUpper().Substring(m.Value.Length - 1));
If you want to support multiple dashes between words (dash--case) and remove only the final one (dash-Case), change the regular expression to match only a dash followed by a non-dash (rather than a dash followed by any character):
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input) =>
Regex.Replace(input, "-[^-]", m => m.Value.ToUpper().Substring(1));

string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input)
{
string[] words = input.Split('-');
words = words.Select(element => wordToCamelCase(element));
return string.Join("", words);
}
string wordToCamelCase(string input)
{
return input.First().ToString().ToUpper() + input.Substring(1).ToLower();
}

Here is an updated version of #Jim Mischel's answer that will ignore the content - i.e. it will only camelCase tag names.
string ConvertDashToCamelCase(string input)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
bool caseFlag = false;
bool tagFlag = false;
for(int i = 0; i < input.Length; i++)
{
char c = input[i];
if(tagFlag)
{
if (c == '-')
{
caseFlag = true;
}
else if (caseFlag)
{
sb.Append(char.ToUpper(c));
caseFlag = false;
}
else
{
sb.Append(char.ToLower(c));
}
}
else
{
sb.Append(c);
}
// Reset tag flag if necessary
if(c == '>' || c == '<')
{
tagFlag = (c == '<');
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}

using System;
using System.Text;
public class MyString
{
public static string ToCamelCase(string str)
{
char[] s = str.ToCharArray();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for(int i = 0; i < s.Length; i++)
{
if (s[i] == '-' || s[i] == '_')
sb.Append(Char.ToUpper(s[++i]));
else
sb.Append(s[i]);
}
return sb.ToString();
}
}

C# split comma separated values

How can I split comma separated strings with quoted strings that can also contain commas?
Example input:
John, Doe, "Sid, Nency", Smith
Expected output:
John
Doe
Sid, Nency
Smith
Split by commas was ok, but I've got requirement that strings like "Sid, Nency" are allowed. I tried to use regexes to split such values. Regex ",(?=([^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*[^\"]*$)" is from Java question and it is not working good for my .NET code. It doubles some strings, finds extra results etc.
So what is the best way to split such strings?

It's because of the capture group. Just turn it into a non-capture group:
",(?=(?:[^""]*""[^""]*"")*[^""]*$)"
^^
The capture group is including the captured part in your results.
ideone demo
var regexObj = new Regex(#",(?=(?:[^""]*""[^""]*"")*[^""]*$)");
regexObj.Split(input).Select(s => s.Trim('\"', ' ')).ForEach(Console.WriteLine);
And just trim the results.

Just go through your string. As you go through your string keep track
if you're in a "block" or not. If you're - don't treat the comma as
a comma (as a separator). Otherwise do treat it as such. It's a simple
algorithm, I would write it myself. When you encounter first " you enter
a block. When you encounter next ", you end that block you were, and so on.
So you can do it with one pass through your string.
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class Test003 {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String s = " John, , , , \" Barry, John \" , , , , , Doe, \"Sid , Nency\", Smith ";
StringBuilder term = new StringBuilder();
boolean inQuote = false;
boolean inTerm = false;
ArrayList<String> terms = new ArrayList<String>();
for (int i=0; i<s.length(); i++){
char ch = s.charAt(i);
if (ch == ' '){
if (inQuote){
if (!inTerm) {
inTerm = true;
}
term.append(ch);
}
else {
if (inTerm){
terms.add(term.toString());
term.setLength(0);
inTerm = false;
}
}
}else if (ch== '"'){
term.append(ch); // comment this out if you don't need it
if (!inTerm){
inTerm = true;
}
inQuote = !inQuote;
}else if (ch == ','){
if (inQuote){
if (!inTerm){
inTerm = true;
}
term.append(ch);
}else{
if (inTerm){
terms.add(term.toString());
term.setLength(0);
inTerm = false;
}
}
}else{
if (!inTerm){
inTerm = true;
}
term.append(ch);
}
}
if (inTerm){
terms.add(term.toString());
}
for (String t : terms){
System.out.println("|" + t + "|");
}
}
}

I use the following code within my Csv Parser class to achieve this:
private string[] ParseLine(string line)
{
List<string> results = new List<string>();
bool inQuotes = false;
int index = 0;
StringBuilder currentValue = new StringBuilder(line.Length);
while (index < line.Length)
{
char c = line[index];
switch (c)
{
case '\"':
{
inQuotes = !inQuotes;
break;
}
default:
{
if (c == ',' && !inQuotes)
{
results.Add(currentValue.ToString());
currentValue.Clear();
}
else
currentValue.Append(c);
break;
}
}
++index;
}
results.Add(currentValue.ToString());
return results.ToArray();
} // eo ParseLine

If you find the regular expression too complex you can do it like this:
string initialString = "John, Doe, \"Sid, Nency\", Smith";
IEnumerable<string> splitted = initialString.Split('"');
splitted = splitted.SelectMany((str, index) => index % 2 == 0 ? str.Split(',') : new[] { str });
splitted = splitted.Where(str => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(str)).Select(str => str.Trim());

What is the best algorithm for arbitrary delimiter/escape character processing?

I'm a little surprised that there isn't some information on this on the web, and I keep finding that the problem is a little stickier than I thought.
Here's the rules:
You are starting with delimited/escaped data to split into an array.
The delimiter is one arbitrary character
The escape character is one arbitrary character
Both the delimiter and the escape character could occur in data
Regex is fine, but a good-performance solution is best
Edit: Empty elements (including leading or ending delimiters) can be ignored
The code signature (in C# would be, basically)
public static string[] smartSplit(
string delimitedData,
char delimiter,
char escape) {}
The stickiest part of the problem is the escaped consecutive escape character case, of course, since (calling / the escape character and , the delimiter): ////////, = ////,
Am I missing somewhere this is handled on the web or in another SO question? If not, put your big brains to work... I think this problem is something that would be nice to have on SO for the public good. I'm working on it myself, but don't have a good solution yet.

A simple state machine is usually the easiest and fastest way. Example in Python:
def extract(input, delim, escape):
# states
parsing = 0
escaped = 1
state = parsing
found = []
parsed = ""
for c in input:
if state == parsing:
if c == delim:
found.append(parsed)
parsed = ""
elif c == escape:
state = escaped
else:
parsed += c
else: # state == escaped
parsed += c
state = parsing
if parsed:
found.append(parsed)
return found

void smartSplit(string const& text, char delim, char esc, vector<string>& tokens)
{
enum State { NORMAL, IN_ESC };
State state = NORMAL;
string frag;
for (size_t i = 0; i<text.length(); ++i)
{
char c = text[i];
switch (state)
{
case NORMAL:
if (c == delim)
{
if (!frag.empty())
tokens.push_back(frag);
frag.clear();
}
else if (c == esc)
state = IN_ESC;
else
frag.append(1, c);
break;
case IN_ESC:
frag.append(1, c);
state = NORMAL;
break;
}
}
if (!frag.empty())
tokens.push_back(frag);
}

private static string[] Split(string input, char delimiter, char escapeChar, bool removeEmpty)
{
if (input == null)
{
return new string[0];
}
char[] specialChars = new char[]{delimiter, escapeChar};
var tokens = new List<string>();
var token = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < input.Length; i++)
{
var c = input[i];
if (c.Equals(escapeChar))
{
if (i >= input.Length - 1)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Uncompleted escape sequence has been encountered at the end of the input");
}
var nextChar = input[i + 1];
if (nextChar != escapeChar && nextChar != delimiter)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Unknown escape sequence has been encountered: " + c + nextChar);
}
token.Append(nextChar);
i++;
}
else if (c.Equals(delimiter))
{
if (!removeEmpty || token.Length > 0)
{
tokens.Add(token.ToString());
token.Length = 0;
}
}
else
{
var index = input.IndexOfAny(specialChars, i);
if (index < 0)
{
token.Append(c);
}
else
{
token.Append(input.Substring(i, index - i));
i = index - 1;
}
}
}
if (!removeEmpty || token.Length > 0)
{
tokens.Add(token.ToString());
}
return tokens.ToArray();
}

The implementation of this kind of tokenizer in terms of a FSM is fairly straight forward.
You do have a few decisions to make (like, what do I do with leading delimiters? strip or emit NULL tokens).
Here is an abstract version which ignores leading and multiple delimiters, and doesn't allow escaping the newline:
state(input) action
========================
BEGIN(*): token.clear(); state=START;
END(*): return;
*(\n\0): token.emit(); state=END;
START(DELIMITER): ; // NB: the input is *not* added to the token!
START(ESCAPE): state=ESC; // NB: the input is *not* added to the token!
START(*): token.append(input); state=NORM;
NORM(DELIMITER): token.emit(); token.clear(); state=START;
NORM(ESCAPE): state=ESC; // NB: the input is *not* added to the token!
NORM(*): token.append(input);
ESC(*): token.append(input); state=NORM;
This kind of implementation has the advantage of dealing with consecutive excapes naturally, and can be easily extended to give special meaning to more escape sequences (i.e. add a rule like ESC(t) token.appeand(TAB)).

Here's my ported function in C#
public static void smartSplit(string text, char delim, char esc, ref List<string> listToBuild)
{
bool currentlyEscaped = false;
StringBuilder fragment = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < text.Length; i++)
{
char c = text[i];
if (currentlyEscaped)
{
fragment.Append(c);
currentlyEscaped = false;
}
else
{
if (c == delim)
{
if (fragment.Length > 0)
{
listToBuild.Add(fragment.ToString());
fragment.Remove(0, fragment.Length);
}
}
else if (c == esc)
currentlyEscaped = true;
else
fragment.Append(c);
}
}
if (fragment.Length > 0)
{
listToBuild.Add(fragment.ToString());
}
}
Hope this helps someone in the future. Thanks to KenE for pointing me in the right direction.

Here's a more idiomatic and readable way to do it:
public IEnumerable<string> SplitAndUnescape(
string encodedString,
char separator,
char escape)
{
var inEscapeSequence = false;
var currentToken = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var currentCharacter in encodedString)
if (inEscapeSequence)
{
currentToken.Append(currentCharacter);
inEscapeSequence = false;
}
else
if (currentCharacter == escape)
inEscapeSequence = true;
else
if (currentCharacter == separator)
{
yield return currentToken.ToString();
currentToken.Clear();
}
else
currentToken.Append(currentCharacter);
yield return currentToken.ToString();
}
Note that this doesn't remove empty elements. I don't think that should be the responsibility of the parser. If you want to remove them, just call Where(item => item.Any()) on the result.
I think this is too much logic for a single method; it gets hard to follow. If someone has time, I think it would be better to break it up into multiple methods and maybe its own class.

You'ew looking for something like a "string tokenizer". There's a version I found quickly that's similar. Or look at getopt.