Develop Reference

Word - Replace text by hyperlinks

I am working on a MS-Word addin that reads the content of a document and replaces every occurence of a specific word by a hyperlink.
So far, I came up with this working algorithm.
// Initializes the Find parameters
searchRange.Find.ClearFormatting();
searchRange.Find.Forward = true;
searchRange.Find.Text = "foo";
do
{
searchRange.Find.Execute(Wrap: Word.WdFindWrap.wdFindStop);
if (searchRange.Find.Found)
{
// Creates a Hyperlink at the found location in the current document
this.WordDocument.Hyperlinks.Add(searchRange, externalLink, link, "bar");
}
searchRange.Find.Execute(Wrap: Word.WdFindWrap.wdFindStop);
} while (searchRange.Find.Found);
This code works, however, it can be slow on bigger documents. Thus, instead of adding hyperlinks one by one, I wanted to simply to use the Find.Replacement object and with the WdReplace.ReplaceAllproperty.
However, I cannot manage to replace my search result by a Hyperlink.
Is there a way to replace a piece of text by a hyperlink using the Replacemethod ?
In other words, I'd like to find a way to do this :
Find.Replacement.Text = new Hyperlink(...);
On an other side, I've seen that, by hitting Alt + F9in Word, we can see hyperlinks as code.
The code looks like this :
{ HYPERLINK \l "link" \o "Caption" }
Another solution would be to be able to set the text replacement as that string and make Word interpret it and thus, create the link.
Thanks for reading.

As far as I know, fields can only be inserted programmatically, or by using CTRL-F9. There are two possible reasons for this that I see:
They are not simple text. They have two ranges, the Code and the Result, only one of which is displayed at any time.
How else would a user insert text that looks like a code but is not supposed to be one, unless there was a special mechanism to create one?

How to produce a soft return using C#.net

I know this is kind of easy question but i cant seem to find it anywhere. Is there someone out there who knows how to create a soft return inside a set of text using C#.net?
I need to print soft return to a text file/xml file. this text file will be generated using c#.net. you could verify if the answer is correct if you use NOTEPAD++ then enable the option to “View>Show Symbol > Show End of Line” then you will see a symbol like this:
Thanks in advance :)

Not sure what you mean by a soft return. A quick Google search says it's a non-stored line break typically due to word wrapping in which case you wouldn't actually put this in a string, it would only be relevant when the string was rendered for display.
To put a carriage return and/or line feed in the string you would use:
string s = "line one\r\nline two";
And for further reference, here are the other escape codes that you can use.
Link (MSDN Blogs)
In response to your edit
The LF that you see can be represented with \n in a string. Obviously you have a specific line ending sequence that you need to represent. If you were to use Environment.NewLine that is going to give you different results on different platforms.

var message = $"Tom{Convert.ToChar(10)}Harry";
Results in:
Tom
Harry
With just a line feed between.

Lke already mentioned you can use Enviroment.NewLine but I am not sure if that i what you want or if you are actually trying to append a ASCII 141 to your string as mentioned in the comments.
You can add ASCII chr sequences to your string like this.
var myString = new StringBuilder("Foo");
myString.Append((char)141);

How to read text file between ""

I need an "idea" on how to read text file data between quotes. For example:
line 1: "read a title"
line 2: "read a descr"
line 1: "read a title"
line 2: "read a descr"
I want to do a foreach type of thing, and I want to read all Line 1's, and Line 2's as a pair, but between the ".
In my program I am going to output (foreach of course):
readTerminatedNull(file1);
readTerminatedNull(file2);
I would read line by line, but some of the text could be:
line 1: "read a super long
title that goes off"
line 2: "read a descr"
So that's why I want to read between the ".
Sorry if that is too complicated, and it's a little hard to explain.
Edit:
Thanks for all the feed back guys, but I'm not sure you are getting what I am trying to do :p not your faults, I wrote this kinda wierd.
I will have a text file full of refrences, and text. like so.
text inside:
Refren: "myrefrence_1"
String: "This is a string of a refrence"
Refren: "myrefrence_2"
String: "hello world"
Refren: "myrefrence_3"
String: "I like cookies."
I want it to to read myrefrence_1 in the quotes of the first line, and then read the string in the next line between the ".
I will then stuff into my program that matches the refrence with the string.
But sometimes the text will be more than one line.
Refren: "this is text that goes and then
return keys on some parts."
and I still want it to read through the ".

(not tested, but you'll get the idea)
// Read all text from file
string sData = File.ReadAllText(#"c:/file.txt");
// Match strings between " "
Match match = Regex.Match(sData , "\"(\w|\d|\s|\\\")*\"",
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
// Read results and strip " out of them
foreach (var sResult in match) {
sResult = sResult.Remove(0,1).Remove(sResult.length-2, 1);
// Do whatever with sResult
}

You could learn some new tricks by looking into state machines. Basically: Read each character at a time and figure out what state you are in now. First, code this as a big while loop with a big switch statement inside. Then, go and read up on the state pattern for how to do this in an object oriented way. Then, ditch that and use delegates, because c# makes this stuff so easy to do.
Then, scrap it all, write some crappy Regular Expression with a multiline flag and slurp it the Perl way. Meditate on why this is the same as your original state machine solution.
Then, get really stuck in and learn about parser generators (lexx/yacc or some .NET variant) and write a simple BNF grammar for your problem. Take special note of how the trivial grammars used in the tutorials are all way more complicated than the one you need to write. Why is that so? Check out what Noam Chomsky had to say about that.
Eventually, you'll burn out. We all do. But you'll have so much fun digging into what makes programming the coolest activity on the planet. Burn-out is just the realization that that's a pipe dream ;)
When you're done, go outside. Meet people. Talk. Smile a lot. Be friendly. You're now a zen infused developer with a wicked grin. Yay for you! You rock!

What you're describing sounds like a single-column CSV file. The easiest way to access that is probably to use the Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.TextFieldParser class, something like:
using (var csvParser = new TextFieldParser(new StringReader(content))
{
Delimiters = new[] {","},
HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true
})
{
while (!csvParser.EndOfData)
{
var fields = csvParser.ReadFields();
Console.Print(fields[0]); //do something with the first (in your case only) field found.
}
}
Probably the easiest way to determine whether this approach makes sense, is to think about what happens if the string you're reading actually contains a double quote. Would it end up as "He said ""this is quoted"", but I wasn't listening" (doubling up the quotes), or is this situation impossible?
If the quotes would be doubled up in this way, then a standard CSV reader like this built-in framework one is probably your best bet.

To read all of the lines of the file you can use:
File.ReadAllLines(pathToFile);
to strip the text from "" you can use the substring method of string: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aka44szs.aspx
you can do it like that:
string strippedString = original.Substring(1, original.length -2);

Try this one
var text = File.ReadAllLines(pathToFile);
var lines = text.Split(':')
.Where((s,i) => i % 2 != 0)
.Select(s => s.trim('"'));

First of all you need to read in the file using:
File.ReadAllLines(filePath);
Then you could split all the lines using the string.Split function.
Splitting on the closing bracket would be your best bet.

As i have understood from you question is you want to read and write text file with some specific settings. is it ?
I would like to refer to to INI files which are the text files it self and provide the settings configurations as you wish to achieve. here are some links these could help you.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/1966/An-INI-file-handling-class-using-C
http://jachman.wordpress.com/2006/09/11/how-to-access-ini-files-in-c-net/

Parsing a CSV File with C#, ignoring thousand separators

Working on a program that takes a CSV file and splits on each ",". The issue I have is there are thousand separators in some of the numbers. In the CSV file, the numbers render correctly. When viewed as a text document, they are shown like below:
Dog,Cat,100,100,Fish
In a CSV file, there are four cells, with the values "Dog", "Cat", "100,000", "Fish". When I split on the "," to an array of strings, it contains 5 elements, when what I want is 4. Anyone know a way to work around this?
Thanks

There are two common mistakes made when reading csv code: using a split() function and using regular expressions. Both approaches are wrong, in that they are prone to corner cases such as yours and slower than they could be.
Instead, use a dedicated parser such as Microsoft.VisualBasic.TextFieldParser, CodeProject's FastCSV or Linq2csv, or my own implemention here on Stack Overflow.

Typically, CSV files would wrap these elements in quotes, causing your line to be displayed as:
Dog,Cat,"100,100",Fish
This would parse correctly (if using a reasonable method, ie: the TextFieldParser class or a 3rd party library), and avoid this issue.
I would consider your file as an error case - and would try to correct the issue on the generation side.
That being said, if that is not possible, you will need to have more information about the data structure in the file to correct this. For example, in this case, you know you should have 4 elements - if you find five, you may need to merge back together the 3rd and 4th, since those two represent the only number within the line.
This is not possible in a general case, however - for example, take the following:
100,100,100
If that is 2 numbers, should it be 100100, 100, or should it be 100, 100100? There is no way to determine this without more information.

you might want to have a look at the free opensource project FileHelpers. If you MUST use your own code, here is a primer on the CSV "standard" format

well you could always split on ("\",\"") and then trim the first and last element.
But I would look into regular expressions that match elements with in "".

Don't just split on the , split on ", ".
Better still, use a CSV library from google or codeplex etc
Reading a CSV file in .NET?

You may be able to use Regex.Replace to get rid of specifically the third comma as per below before parsing?
Replaces up to a specified number of occurrences of a pattern specified in the Regex constructor with a replacement string, starting at a specified character position in the input string. A MatchEvaluator delegate is called at each match to evaluate the replacement.
[C#] public string Replace(string, MatchEvaluator, int, int);

I ran into a similar issue with fields with line feeds in. Im not convinced this is elegant, but... For mine I basically chopped mine into lines, then if the line didnt start with a text delimeter, I appended it to the line above.
You could try something like this : Step through each field, if the field has an end text delimeter, move to the next, if not, grab the next field, appaend it, rince and repeat till you do have an end delimeter (allows for 1,000,000,000 etc) ..
(Im caffeine deprived, and hungry, I did write some code but it was so ugly, I didnt even post it)

Do you know that it will always contain exactly four columns? If so, this quick-and-dirty LINQ code would work:
string[] elements = line.Split(',');
string element1 = elements.ElementAt(0);
string element2 = elements.ElementAt(1);
// Exclude the first two elements and the last element.
var element3parts = elements.Skip(2).Take(elements.Count() - 3);
int element3 = Convert.ToInt32(string.Join("",element3parts));
string element4 = elements.Last();
Not elegant, but it works.

Delete Lines From Beginning of Multiline Textbox in C#

Is there a graceful way in C# to delete multiple lines of text from the beginning of a multiline textbox? I am using Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition.
EDIT - Additional Details
The multiline textbox in my application is disabled (i.e. it is only editable by the application itself), and every line is terminated with a "\r\n".

This is an incomplete question. So assuming you are using either TextBox or RichTextBox you can use the Lines property found inTextBoxBase.
//get all the lines out as an arry
string[] lines = this.textBox.Lines;
You can then work with this array and set it back.
this.textBox.Lines= newLinesArray;
This might not be the most elegant way, but it will remove the first line.
EDIT: you don't need select, just using skip will be fine
//number of lines to remove from the beginning
int numOfLines = 30;
var lines = this.textBox1.Lines;
var newLines = lines.Skip(numOfLines);
this.textBox1.Lines = newLines.ToArray();

This solution works for me in WPF:
while (LogTextBox.LineCount > Constants.LogMaximumLines)
{
LogTextBox.Text = LogTextBox.Text.Remove(0, LogTextBox.GetLineLength(0));
}
You can replace LogTextBox with the name of your text box, and Constants.LogMaximumLines with the maximum number of lines you would like your text box to have.

Unfortunately, no, there is no "elegant" way to delete lines from the text of a multiline TextBox, regardless of whether you are using ASP.NET, WinForms, or WPF/Silverlight. In every case, you build a string that does not contain the lines you don't want and set the Text property.
WinForms will help you a little bit by pre-splitting the Text value into lines, using the Lines property, but it's not very helpful because it's a string array, and it's not exactly easy to delete an element of an array.
Generally, this algorithm will work for all possible versions of the TextBox class:
var lines = (from item in myTextBox.Text.Split('\n') select item.Trim());
lines = lines.Skip(numLinesToSkip);
myTextBox.Text = string.Join(Environment.Newline, lines.ToArray());
Note: I'm using Environment.Newline specifically for the case of Silverlight on a Unix platform. For all other cases, you're perfectly fine using "\r\n" in the string.Join call.
Also, I do not consider this an elegant solution, even though it's only 3 lines. What it does is the following:
splits the single string into an array of strings
iterates over that array and builds a second array that does not include the lines skipped
joins the array back into a single string.
I do not consider it elegant because it essentially builds two separate arrays, then builds a string from the second array. A more elegant solution would not do this.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Lines collection of the TextBox does not accurately reflect what the user sees as lines. The Lines collection basically works off of carriage returns, whereas the user could see lines wrapping from one line to the next without a carriage return. This may or may not be the behavior you want.
For example, the user would see the below as three lines, but the Lines collection will show 2 (since there are only 2 carriage returns):
This is line number
one.
This is line 2.
Also, if the form, and the text control are resizable the visible lines in the text will change as the control grows or shrinks.
I wrote a blog post several years ago on how to determine the number of lines in the textbox as the user sees them and get the index of a given line (like to get the line at index: http://ryanfarley.com/blog/archive/2004/04/07/511.aspx, perhaps this post will help.

if (txtLog.Lines.Length > maxNumberLines)
{
txtLog.Lines = txtLog.Lines.Skip(txtLog.Lines.Length - maxNumberLines).ToArray();
}