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How to dynamically remove the last Char in a String in C#

I am creating a console application upon which the user can type in a train station and find the train stations. For this, I am appending the Console.ReadKey().Key to a String each time.
When the user types an incorrect letter, I want the ConsoleKey.Backspace to remove the last Char in the String.
private void SetDepartingFrom()
{
String searchQuery = "";
ConsoleKey keyIn;
while ((keyIn = readKey(searchQuery)) != ConsoleKey.Enter)
{
if (keyIn == ConsoleKey.Backspace)
{
searchQuery.TrimEnd(searchQuery[searchQuery.Length - 1]);
}
else
{
searchQuery += keyIn.ToString();
}
}
}
private ConsoleKey readKey(String searchQuery)
{
Console.Clear();
Console.WriteLine("Stations Found:");
if (searchQuery != "")
App.Stations.FindAll(x => x.GetName().ToUpper().Contains(searchQuery.ToUpper())).ForEach(x => Console.WriteLine(x.GetName()));
else
Console.WriteLine("No Stations found...");
Console.Write("Search: " + searchQuery);
return Console.ReadKey().Key;
}
I have tried the following:
if (keyIn == ConsoleKey.Backspace)
searchQuery.TrimEnd(searchQuery[searchQuery.Length - 1]);
if (keyIn == ConsoleKey.Backspace)
searchQuery.Remove(searchQuery.Length -1);
if (keyIn == ConsoleKey.Backspace)
searchQuery[searchQuery.Length -1] = "";
None have worked. I understand Strings are immutable in C#, however, is this possible or is there a better way to achieve this?
Thanks in advance.

String is immutable so you have to use the value returned by TrimEnd.
searchQuery = searchQuery.TrimEnd(searchQuery[searchQuery.Length - 1]);
In this case I think Substring method would be more appropriate.

As you noted, strings are immutable. All of the instance methods on the string type (at least those related to "modifying" it) return a new string. This means that calling something like the following returns a new string which is immediately discarded:
// value is discarded
searchQuery.Substring(0, searchQuery.Length - 1);
The solution is to reassign the variable with the new value. For example:
searchQuery = searchQuery.Substring(0, searchQuery.Length - 1);
SharpLab example
If you are using C# 8 you can make use of the range operator via the Index/Range classes. This provides a bit cleaner version:
// backspace one character
searchQuery = searchQuery[..^1];
SharpLab example
I will also note that TrimEnd is most likely not what you want. It will trim more than one character at a time which isn't what a single press of the Backspace key would do. For example consider the following:
var str = "Abcdeee";
var result = str.TrimEnd('e');
Console.WriteLine(result); // prints "Abcd"
SharpLab example

Any method you use to manipulate the string will return the new string so you need to capture that.
string newString = searchQuery.Substring(0, searchQuery.Length -1);

It will return a new string, so you need to assign it to a string like this.
string newStr = earchQuery.Remove(searchQuery.Length -1);
Or to same string you can do like this.
earchQuery= earchQuery.Remove(searchQuery.Length -1);
You can also use TrimEnd and SubString methods.

You may try the following code example which removes the last character from a string.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
namespace Rextester
{
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string founder = "Hell World from Big_Data_Analyst!";
string founderMinus1 = founder.Remove(founder.Length - 1, 1);
Console.WriteLine(founderMinus1);
}
}
}
The input string in the code is
Hell World from Big_Data_Analyst!
The output string is
Hell World from Big_Data_Analyst
As you see the last character which is ! is being removed in the output

Replacing characters in a string with another string

So what I am trying to do is as follows :
example of a string is A4PC
I am trying to replace for example any occurance of "A" with "[A4]" so I would get and similar any occurance of "4" with "[A4]"
"[A4][A4]PC"
I tried doing a normal Replace on the string but found out I got
"[A[A4]]PC"
string badWordAllVariants =
restriction.Value.Replace("A", "[A4]").Replace("4", "[A4]")
since I have two A's in a row causing an issue.
So I was thinking it would be better rather than the replace on the string I need to do it on a character per character basis and then build up a string again.
Is there anyway in Linq or so to do something like this ?

You don't need any LINQ here - String.Replace works just fine:
string input = "AAPC";
string result = input.Replace("A", "[A4]"); // "[A4][A4]PC"
UPDATE: For your updated requirements I suggest to use regular expression replace
string input = "A4PC";
var result = Regex.Replace(input, "A|4", "[A4]"); // "[A4][A4]PC"

This works well for me:
string x = "AAPC";
string replace = x.Replace("A", "[A4]");
EDIT:
Based on the updated question, the issue is the second replacement. In order to replace multiple strings you will want to do this sequentially:
var original = "AAPC";
// add arbitrary room to allow for more new characters
StringBuilder resultString = new StringBuilder(original.Length + 10);
foreach (char currentChar in original.ToCharArray())
{
if (currentChar == 'A') resultString.Append("[A4]");
else if (currentChar == '4') resultString.Append("[A4]");
else resultString.Append(currentChar);
}
string result = resultString.ToString();
You can run this routine with any replacements you want to make (in this case the letters 'A' and '4' and it should work. If you would want to replace strings the code would be similar in structure but you would need to "look ahead" and probably use a for loop. Hopefully this helps!
By the way - you want to use a string builder here and not strings because strings are static which means space gets allocated every time you loop. (Not good!)

I think this should do the trick
string str = "AA4PC";
string result = Regex.Replace(str, #"(?<Before>[^A4]?)(?<Value>A|4)(?<After>[^A4]?)", (m) =>
{
string before = m.Groups["Before"].Value;
string after = m.Groups["After"].Value;
string value = m.Groups["Value"].Value;
if (before != "[" || after != "]")
{
return "[A4]";
}
return m.ToString();
});
It is going to replace A and 4 that hasn't been replaced yet for [A4].

C# 2.0 function which will return the formatted string

I am using C# 2.0 and I have got below type of strings:
string id = "tcm:481-191820"; or "tcm:481-191820-32"; or "tcm:481-191820-8"; or "tcm:481-191820-128";
The last part of string doesn't matter i.e. (-32,-8,-128), whatever the string is it will render below result.
Now, I need to write one function which will take above string as input. something like below and will output as "tcm:0-481-1"
public static string GetPublicationID(string id)
{
//this function will return as below output
return "tcm:0-481-1"
}
Please suggest!!

If final "-1" is static you could use:
public static string GetPublicationID(string id)
{
int a = 1 + id.IndexOf(':');
string first = id.Substring(0, a);
string second = id.Substring(a, id.IndexOf('-') - a);
return String.Format("{0}0-{1}-1", first, second);
}
or if "-1" is first part of next token, try this
public static string GetPublicationID(string id)
{
int a = 1 + id.IndexOf(':');
string first = id.Substring(0, a);
string second = id.Substring(a, id.IndexOf('-') - a + 2);
return String.Format("{0}0-{1}", first, second);
}
This syntax works even for different length patterns, assuming that your string is
first_part:second_part-anything_else

All you need is:
string.Format("{0}0-{1}", id.Substring(0,4), id.Substring(4,5));
This just uses substring to get the first four characters and then the next five and put them into the format with the 0- in there.
This does assume that your format is a fixed number of characters in each position (which it is in your example). If the string might be abcd:4812... then you will have to modify it slightly to pick up the right length of strings. See Marco's answer for that technique. I'd advise using his if you need the variable length and mine if the lengths stay the same.
Also as an additional note your original function of returning a static string does work for all of those examples you provided. I have assumed there are other numbers visible but if it is only the suffix that changes then you could happily use a static string (at which point declaring a constant or something rather than using a method would probably work better).

Obligatory Regular Expression Answer:
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
public static string GetPublicationID(string id)
{
Match m = RegEx.Match(#"tcm:([\d]+-[\d]{1})", id);
if(m.Success)
return string.Format("tcm:0-{0}", m.Groups[1].Captures[0].Value.ToString());
else
return string.Empty;
}

Regex regxMatch = new Regex("(?<prefix>tcm:)(?<id>\\d+-\\d)(?<suffix>.)*",RegexOptions.Singleline|RegexOptions.Compiled);
string regxReplace = "${prefix}0-${id}";
string GetPublicationID(string input) {
return regxMatch.Replace(input, regxReplace);
}
string test = "tcm:481-191820-128";
stirng result = GetPublicationID(test);
//result: tcm:0-481-1

Why isn't this C# code working? It should return the string between two other strings, but always returns an empty string

The title explains it all. It seems simple enough, so I must be overlooking something stupid. Here's what I've got.
private string getBetween(string strSource, string strStart, string strEnd)
{
int start, end;
if (strSource.Contains(strStart) && strSource.Contains(strEnd))
{
start = strSource.IndexOf(strStart, 0) + strStart.Length;
end = strSource.IndexOf(strEnd, start);
return strSource.Substring(start, end - start);
}
else
{
return "";
}
}
Thanks, guys.

Your code doesn't make sure that start and end are in order.
static string SubString(string source, string prefix, string suffix)
{
int start = source.IndexOf(prefix); // get position of prefix
if (start == -1)
return String.Empty;
int subStart = start + prefix.Length; // get position of substring
int end = source.IndexOf(suffix, subStart); // make sure suffix also exists
if (end == -1)
return String.Empty;
int subLength = end - subStart; // calculate length of substring
if (subLength == 0)
return String.Empty;
return source.Substring(subStart, subLength); // return substring
}

As couple of peoples said the problem that you code is working on very specific input, it's all because of this start and end IndexOf magic =) But when you try to update you code to work correct on more inputs you will get into problem that your code become very long with many indexes, comparsions, substrings, conditions and so on. To avoid this i like to recommend you use regular expressions with theirs help you can express what you need on special language.
Here is the sample which solves your problem with regular expressions:
public static string getBetween(string source, string before, string after)
{
var regExp = new Regex(string.Format("{0}(?<needle>[^{0}{1}]+){1}",before,after));
var matches = regExp.Matches(source).Cast<Match>(). //here we use LINQ to
OrderBy(m => m.Groups["needle"].Value.Length). //find shortest string
Select(m => m.Groups["needle"].Value); //you can use foreach loop instead
return matches.FirstOrDefault();
}
All tricky part is {0}(?<needle>[^{0}{1}]+){1} where 0 - before string and 1 - after string. This expression means that we nned to find string that lies beetween 0 and 1, and also don't contains 0 and 1.
Hope this helps.

I get the correct answer if I try any of these:
var a = getBetween("ABC", "A", "C");
var b = getBetween("TACOBBURRITO", "TACO", "BURRITO");
var c = getBetween("TACOBACONBURRITO", "TACO", "BURRITO");
The problem is likely with your input argument validation, as this fails:
var a = getBetween("ABC", "C", "A");
var a = getBetween("ABC", "C", "C");
You can improve your validation of the issue by writing some test cases like these as a separate fixture (xUnit, or main loop in throw away app).

Remove characters after specific character in string, then remove substring?

I feel kind of dumb posting this when this seems kind of simple and there are tons of questions on strings/characters/regex, but I couldn't find quite what I needed (except in another language: Remove All Text After Certain Point).
I've got the following code:
[Test]
public void stringManipulation()
{
String filename = "testpage.aspx";
String currentFullUrl = "http://localhost:2000/somefolder/myrep/test.aspx?q=qvalue";
String fullUrlWithoutQueryString = currentFullUrl.Replace("?.*", "");
String urlWithoutPageName = fullUrlWithoutQueryString.Remove(fullUrlWithoutQueryString.Length - filename.Length);
String expected = "http://localhost:2000/somefolder/myrep/";
String actual = urlWithoutPageName;
Assert.AreEqual(expected, actual);
}
I tried the solution in the question above (hoping the syntax would be the same!) but nope. I want to first remove the queryString which could be any variable length, then remove the page name, which again could be any length.
How can I get the remove the query string from the full URL such that this test passes?

For string manipulation, if you just want to kill everything after the ?, you can do this
string input = "http://www.somesite.com/somepage.aspx?whatever";
int index = input.IndexOf("?");
if (index >= 0)
input = input.Substring(0, index);
Edit: If everything after the last slash, do something like
string input = "http://www.somesite.com/somepage.aspx?whatever";
int index = input.LastIndexOf("/");
if (index >= 0)
input = input.Substring(0, index); // or index + 1 to keep slash
Alternately, since you're working with a URL, you can do something with it like this code
System.Uri uri = new Uri("http://www.somesite.com/what/test.aspx?hello=1");
string fixedUri = uri.AbsoluteUri.Replace(uri.Query, string.Empty);

To remove everything before the first /
input = input.Substring(input.IndexOf("/"));
To remove everything after the first /
input = input.Substring(0, input.IndexOf("/") + 1);
To remove everything before the last /
input = input.Substring(input.LastIndexOf("/"));
To remove everything after the last /
input = input.Substring(0, input.LastIndexOf("/") + 1);
An even more simpler solution for removing characters after a specified char is to use the String.Remove() method as follows:
To remove everything after the first /
input = input.Remove(input.IndexOf("/") + 1);
To remove everything after the last /
input = input.Remove(input.LastIndexOf("/") + 1);

Here's another simple solution. The following code will return everything before the '|' character:
if (path.Contains('|'))
path = path.Split('|')[0];
In fact, you could have as many separators as you want, but assuming you only have one separation character, here is how you would get everything after the '|':
if (path.Contains('|'))
path = path.Split('|')[1];
(All I changed in the second piece of code was the index of the array.)

The Uri class is generally your best bet for manipulating Urls.

To remove everything before a specific char, use below.
string1 = string1.Substring(string1.IndexOf('$') + 1);
What this does is, takes everything before the $ char and removes it. Now if you want to remove the items after a character, just change the +1 to a -1 and you are set!
But for a URL, I would use the built in .NET class to take of that.

Request.QueryString helps you to get the parameters and values included within the URL
example
string http = "http://dave.com/customers.aspx?customername=dave"
string customername = Request.QueryString["customername"].ToString();
so the customername variable should be equal to dave
regards

I second Hightechrider: there is a specialized Url class already built for you.
I must also point out, however, that the PHP's replaceAll uses regular expressions for search pattern, which you can do in .NET as well - look at the RegEx class.

you can use .NET's built in method to remove the QueryString.
i.e., Request.QueryString.Remove["whatever"];
here whatever in the [ ] is name of the querystring which you want to
remove.
Try this...
I hope this will help.

You can use this extension method to remove query parameters (everything after the ?) in a string
public static string RemoveQueryParameters(this string str)
{
int index = str.IndexOf("?");
return index >= 0 ? str.Substring(0, index) : str;
}