CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#regex
Daniel Martin
Daniel Martin

Reputation: 570

Regex replace Windows line break characters

I have this bit of code, which is supposed to replace the Windows linebreak character (\r\n) with an empty character.

However, it does not seem to replace anything, as if I view the string after the regex expression is applied to it, the linebreak characters are still there. 

    private void SetLocationsAddressOrGPSLocation(Location location, string locationString)
    {
        //Regex check for the characters a-z|A-Z.
        //Remove any \r\n characters (Windows Newline characters)
        locationString = Regex.Replace(locationString, @"[\\r\\n]", "");
        int test = Regex.Matches(locationString, @"[\\r\\n]").Count;    //Curiously, this outputs 0
        int characterCount = Regex.Matches(locationString,@"[a-zA-Z]").Count;
        //If there were characters, set the location's address to the locationString
        if (characterCount > 0)
        {
            location.address = locationString;
        }
        //Otherwise, set the location's coordinates to the locationString. 
        else
        {
            location.coordinates = locationString;
        }
    }   //End void SetLocationsAddressOrGPSLocation()

Upvotes: 1

Views: 224

Answers (1)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 627469

You are using verbatim string literal, thus \\ is treated as a literal \. So, your regex is actually matching \, r and n. Use

locationString = Regex.Replace(locationString, @"[\r\n]+", "");

This [\r\n]+ pattern will make sure you will remove each and every \r and \n symbol, and you won't have to worry if you have a mix of newline characters in your file. (Sometimes, I have both \n and \r\n endings in text files).

Upvotes: 3

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