CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#string
James Wilson
James Wilson

Reputation: 5150

Environment.Newline and replace

I am trying to allow people to throw account number into a text box and I am trying to let them enter them in several different way

IE:

1234
5678
9101
1213

Or:

1234,5678,9101,1112

But for some reason my Replace function doesn't want to respect Environment.Newline or "\r\n"

public string[] getAccounts()
{
    string textLines;
    string[] accounts;

    textLines = accountsTextBox.Text;
    textLines.Replace(Environment.NewLine, ",");
    accounts = textLines.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToArray(), StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

    return accounts;
}

I grab everything from the text box into a string, then want to force everything into a comma delimited list, and finally split that list by commas.

What am I missing in my Replace?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3106

Answers (2)

Jon Senchyna
Jon Senchyna

Reputation: 8047

This is because String.Replace does not modify the original string, but rather, returns a new string. You should update the line

textLines.Replace(Environment.NewLine, ",");

as follows:

textLines = textLines.Replace(Environment.NewLine, ",");

Additionally, you have another issue with your call to String.Split():

It is trying to split on Environment.NewLine.ToArray(). Assuming you did your replace correctly, it should have already replaced your newline characters with commas at this point, so there would be no newline delimiters left in the string.

My ultimate recommendation would be the following:

// At the class level
static char[] delimiters = new char[]{','};

// In your getAccounts() function
textLines = accountsTextBox.Text.Replace(Environment.NewLine, ",");
accounts = textLines.Split(delimiters, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Alternately, you could forgo the call to String.Replace() altogether and just update your delimiter array, like so:

// At the class level
static char[] delimiters = ("\r\n,").ToArray(); // treat '\r' '\n' and ',' as delimiters

// In your getAccounts() function
accounts = accountsTextBox.Text.Split(delimiters, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Upvotes: 7

Wiktor Zychla
Wiktor Zychla

Reputation: 48279

 textLines = textLines.Replace( ... )

Upvotes: 2

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