I have a little chunk of code (see below) that is returning the string:
string.Format("{0}----{1}",3,"test 2");
so how do I get this to actually "Execute"? To run and do the format/replacement of {0} and {1}?
My Code snippet:
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.Append("{0}----{1}\",");
sb.AppendFormat(ReturnParamValue(siDTO, "siDTO.SuggestionItemID,siDTO.Title"));
string sbStr = "=string.Format(\""+sb.ToString()+");";
yes, ReturnParamValue gives the actually value of the DTO.
Anyways, I've taken a look at the following (but it doesn't say how to execute it:
How to get String.Format not to parse {0}
Maybe, I just should put my code snippet in a method. But, what then?
Why are you including String.Format in the string itself?
If you're looking for a generic "let me evaluate this arbitrary expression I've built up in a string" then there isn't a simple answer.
If, instead, you're looking at how to provide the parameters to the string from a function call, then you've got yourself all twisted up and working too hard.
Try something like this, based on your original code:
string result
= string.Format(
"{0}----{1}",
ReturnParamValue(siDTO, "siDTO.SuggestionItemID,siDTO.Title"));
Though, this won't entirely work since your original code seems to be only providing a single value, and you have two values in your format string - the {0} will be replaced with the value from your function, and {1} left unchanged.
What output are you expecting?
Does your ReturnParamValue() function try to return both the label and the value in a single string? If it does, and if they're comma separated, then you could try this:
var value = ReturnParamValue(siDTO, "siDTO.SuggestionItemID,siDTO.Title"));
var pieces = string.Split(',');
string result
= string.Format( "{0}----{1}", pieces[0], pieces[1]);
Though this is seriously working too hard if ReturnParamValue() is a method you control.
Update Fri 6 August
Check out the declaration for string.Format() as shown on MSDN:
public static string Format(
string format,
params Object[] args
)
Unlike the special casing you might have seen in C for printf(), there's nothing special or unusual about the way string.Format() handles multiple parameters. The key is the params keyword, which asks the compiler to provide a little "syntactic sugar" where it combines the parameters into an array for you.
Key here is that the wrapping doesn't happen if you're already passing a single object[] - so if you wanted to, you could do something like this:
object[] parameters
= ReturnParamValues(siDTO, "siDTO.SuggestionItemID,siDTO.Title");
string result
= string.Format("{0}----{1}----{2}", parameters);
Though, if I saw something like this in any codebase I maintained, I'd be treating it as a code-smell and looking for a better way to solve the problem.
Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's advisable. YMMV, of course.
I don't think you can execute it. Java is not really a interpreted language.
You may make use of scripting languages (which can even embed in your Java app as I know, start from JDK6) for such purpose, like Groovy
You could use RegEx to parse the three parameters out of the string, and then pass them to a real, actual string.Format method :-)
It looks like what you want is something like this:
string sbStr = string.Format("{0}----{1}", siDTO.SuggestionItemID, siDTO.Title);
Maybe i didn't understand your question completely, but it sounds like you need to format a format-string. If that's true you could maybe try something like this:
int width = 5;
string format = String.Format("{{0,{0}}}----{{1,{0}}}", width);
string result = String.Format(format, "ab", "cd");
So the trick is simply to escape the { or } by using a double {{ or }}.
Related
I have a string in the following format:
message:action
How can I parse this string and get the second part only?
The action might be different the first part will always be the same: message:
Is this a correct way?
string value="message:action";
string[] result = value.Split(':');
string action = result[1];
Yes it is. Or, since the first part is always the same, you could simply use substring:
value.SubString(8);
That solution is fine, but it's a little more work than necessary. If you know that the string will always start with "message:", why not just do this:
var action = value.Substring(8);
However, if the string that comes before the : might change, but you still only care about what comes after it, you could do this:
var action = value.Substring(value.IndexOf(':') + 1);
Yes, your solution will work. However, if the first part is always the same, another possibility is to use Substring as pswg's answer mentions.
If you know that the string will start with message: you can do this:
String value="message:action";
String result = value.Replace("message:","");
It's OK, although if you worry about there being colons in the content (e.g., "message:action:do this"):
string value="message:action";
string[] result = value.Split(':');
string action = value.Substring(result[0].Length);
(this is of course if it's not always starting with "message:")
If you want to have self-documenting code, you can use regex (so you don't think in the future, what the heck is this code and why do I take second part).
string value = "message:action";
string action = Regex.Match(value, "(?<=^message:).*").Value; // will throw exception in case if someday format changes
I'm adding one more answer for legibility. There are several correct answers in the thread so far.
Just to offer a very readable alternative at very little cost of performance consider the following:
string value = "message:action";
string action = value.Split(':').Skip(1);
string rawConnString = Properties.Settings.Default.ConnectionString;
I want to do this with "rawConnString":
rawConnString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server);
rawConnString.Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
Then set the final string to variable finalConnString.
How would I go about doing this?
This is ASP .NET 4.0/C# btw.
string finalString = Properties.Settings.Default.ConnectionString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server).Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
will do it all in one line of code. But it's uglier IMO because you'll have to scroll. The code in your question seems a LOT cleaner and more readable to me.
And doing it in one line of code won't help your performance at all. It should all compile down to the same MSIL either way. I'd leave it as you had it.
Not sure if this is what you're after, but you can chain them:
var finalConnString = rawConnString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server)
.Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
If you're looking to do it with a single method call, I don't think there's anything native to .NET. You can always create an extension method though. Here's a performance-conscious ReplaceMany implementation (signature .ReplaceMany(string[] oldValues, string[] newValues)).
This is frankly trivial; you have 90% of the code you need:
string rawConnString = Properties.Settings.Default.ConnectionString;
string finalConnString = rawConnString
.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server)
.Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
To avoid using two back-to-back calls of Replace, you can use regular expressions. However, this is far less readable than the original:
string connString = Regex.Replace(
rawConnString
, "(<<DATA_SOURCE>>)|(<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>)"
, m => m.Groups[1].Success ? server : "tempdb"
);
Link to ideone.
you mean something like this
string tempString=rawConnString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server);
sting finalstring=tempString.Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
First, String.replace does not change the original string: it creates a new string. So you have to assign the return value to something. So the logically simplest thing to do is:
finalstring=rawConnString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server);
finalstring=finalstring.Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
Note that for the second replace, you want to start with the results of the first replace, not the original string.
As String.replace returns a string, and String.replace takes a string, you might find it easier to run them together:
finalstring=rawConnString.Replace("<<DATA_SOURCE>>", server).Replace("<<INITIAL_CATALOG>>", "tempdb");
I have a string as follows:
ListViewSubItem: {Debian6/Debian6.vmx }
What would be the most efficient way of getting the following output:
Debian6/Debian6.vmx
int beginidx = haystack.IndexOf('{');
string needle = haystack.SubString(beginidx,
haystack.IndexOf('}') - beginidx + 1).Trim();
string result = Regex.Match("ListViewSubItem: {Debian6/Debian6.vmx }", #"(?<={)(.+?)(?=})").Value;
You can use a regex:
\{\s*(.*)\s*\}
The desired string will be in the first captured group (Match.Groups[1]).
Example:
string output = Regex.Match(input, #"\{\s*(.*?)\s*\}").Groups[1].Value;
As was pointed out, regexes are slower than plain string manipulation. If performance is an issue, and the string extraction is in a tight loop, then it may be better to use an optimized method. Otherwise, regex vs string is IMHO a matter of personal preference.
I'm going to guess you didn't generate that string yourself. So the question is, why parse it? This looks like the sort of question where you should take a step back and think of what you're trying to solve, and if another method might be cleaner.
I am not familiar with the ListViewSubItem class, but it seems like you have one of these and you have called ToString() on it. Now you are parsing the output of ToString() to see the model object your sub-item represents.
Does this not seem backwards to you? Maybe you should deal with the ListViewSubItem object itself (from a brief look at the documentation, what you want seems to be the Text property), rather than fiddling with what ToString() returns, which seems volatile and dependent on the implementation of that class's ToString() method (which, though likely not, could theoretically change from release to release). Not to mention corner cases like "what if the string contains the } character?"
For this in other reasons, as a general rule I think you should not have to deal with serialization when your data source is in memory the whole time.
So, in summary, if you have something like this:
ListViewSubItem item = /* ... */;
string s = item.ToString();
// TODO: parse {Debian} out of ListViewSubItem {Debian}
Why not this instead:
ListViewSubItem item = /* ... */;
string OS = item.Text;
Is it possible to replace a substring in a string without assigning a return value?
I have a string:
string test = "Hello [REPLACE] world";
And I want to replace the substring [REPLACE] with something else:
test = test.replace("[REPLACE]", "test");
This works fine, but how can I do it without assigning the return value to a variable?
I want something like this:
test.replace("[REPLACE]", "test");
As mentioned by dlev, you can't do this with string as strings are immutable in .NET - once a string has been constructed, there's nothing you can do (excluding unsafe code or reflection) to change the contents. This makes strings generally easier to work with, as you don't need to worry about defensive copying, they're naturally thread-safe etc.
Its mutable cousin, however, is StringBuilder - which has a Replace method to perform an in-object replacement. For example:
string x = "Hello [first] [second] world";
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(x);
builder.Replace("[first]", "1st");
builder.Replace("[second]", "2nd");
string y = builder.ToString(); // Value of y is "Hello 1st 2nd world"
You can't, because string is immutable. It was designed so that any "changes" to a string would actually result in the creation of a new string object. As such, if you don't assign the return value (which is the "updated" string, actually copy of the original string with applied changes), you have effectively discarded the changes you wanted to make.
If you wanted to make in-place changes, you could in theory work directly with a char[] (array of characters), but that is dangerous, and should be avoided.
Another option (as pointed out by Mr. Skeet below) is to use StringBuilder and its Replace() method. That being said, simple replacements like the one you've shown are quite fast, so you may not want to bother with a StringBuilder unless you'll be doing so quite often.
Strings in .NET are immutable. They cannot be edited in-line.
The closest you can get to in-line editing is to create a StringBuilder from a string. In-line fiddles with its contents and then get it to spit a string back out again.
But this will still produce a new string rather than altering the original. It is a useful technique, though, to avoid generating lots of intermediary strings when doing lots of string fiddling, e.g. in a loop.
You can't. You have to assign the value, as strings are immutable.
Built-in reference types (C# reference)
You can't. Strings are immutable in .NET.
You can't, as in C# strings are immutable. Something like this would violate that.
You need to have the return type of string, because the one you're working with cannot change.
Here is the code to fetch a string from HTML content and pass it to StringBuilder and set the value from your variable. You cannot do string.replace. You have to use StringBuilder while manipulating. Here in the HTML page I added [Name] which is replaced by Name from code behind. Make sure [Name] is unique or you can give any unique name.
string Name = txtname.Text;
string contents = File.ReadAllText(Server.MapPath("~/Admin/invoice.html"));
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(contents);
builder.Replace("[Name]", Name);
StringReader sr = new StringReader(builder.ToString());
This question already has answers here:
Closed 13 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Parsing formatted string.
How can I use a String.Format format and transform its output to its inputs?
For example:
string formatString = "My name is {0}. I have {1} cow(s).";
string s = String.Format(formatString, "strager", 2);
// Call the magic method...
ICollection<string> parts = String.ReverseFormat(formatString, s);
// parts now contains "strager" and "2".
I know I can use regular expressions to do this, but I would like to use the same format string so I only need to maintain one line of code instead of two.
Here is some code from someone attempting a Scanf equivalent in C#:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/recipes/csscanf.aspx
You'll have to implement it yourself, as there's nothing built in to do it for you.
To that end, I suggest you get the actual source code for the .Net string.format implmentation (actually, the relevant code is in StringBuilder.AppendFormat()). It's freely available, and it uses a state machine to walk the string in a very performant manner. You can mimic that code to also walk your formatted string and extract that data.
Note that it won't always be possible to go backwards. Sometimes the formatted string can have characters the match the format specifiers, making it difficult to impossible for the program to know what the original looked like. As I think about it, you might have better luck walking the original string to turn it into a regular expression, and then use that to do the match.
I'd also recommend renaming your method to InvertFormat(), because ReverseFormat sounds like you'd expect this output:
.)s(woc 2 evah .regarts si eman yM
I don't believe there's anything in-box to support this, but in C#, you can pass an array of objects directly to any method taking params-marked array parameters, such as String.Format(). Other than that, I don't believe there's some way for C# & the .NET Framework to know that string X was built from magic format string Y and undo the merge.
Therefore, the only thing I can think of is that you could format your code thusly:
object[] parts = {"strager", 2};
string s = String.Format(formatString, parts);
// Later on use parts, converting each member .ToString()
foreach (object p in parts)
{
Console.WriteLine(p.ToString());
}
Not ideal, and probably not quite what you're looking for, but I think it's the only way.