CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#stringformat
Christian Stewart
Christian Stewart

Reputation: 15519

Check Formatting of a String

This has probably been answered somewhere before but since there are millions of unrelated posts about string formatting.

Take the following string:

24:Something(true;false;true)[0,1,0]

I want to be able to do two things in this case. I need to check whether or not all the following conditions are true:

How can I best do this? EDIT: I have crossed out what I've achieved so far.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1123

Answers (3)

Daryl Teo
Daryl Teo

Reputation: 5495

A regular expression is the quickest way. Depending on the complexity it may also be the most computationally expensive.

This seems to do what you need (I'm not that good so there might be better ways to do this):

^\d{1,3}:\w{1,9}\((true|false)(;true|;false)*\)\[\d(,[\d])*\]$

Explanation

\d{1,3} 1 to 3 digits

: followed by a colon

\w{1,9} followed by a 1-9 character alpha-numeric string,

\((true|false)(;true|;false)*\) followed by parenthesis containing "true" or "false" followed by any number of ";true" or ";false",

\[\d(,[\d])*\] followed by another set of parenthesis containing a digit, followed by any number of comma+digit.

The ^ and $ at the beginning and end of the string indicate the start and end of the string which is important since we're trying to verify the entire string matches the format.

Code Sample

var input = "24:Something(true;false;true)[0,1,0]";

var regex = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"^\d{1,3}:.{1,9}\(.*\)\[\d(,[\d])*\]$");
bool isFormattedCorrectly = regex.IsMatch(input);

Credit @ Ian Nelson

Upvotes: 3

Łukasz Wiatrak
Łukasz Wiatrak

Reputation: 2767

I think, the best way is to use regular expressions like this:

string s = "24:Something(true;false;true)[0,1,0]";
Regex pattern = new Regex(@"^\d{1,3}:[a-zA-z]{1,10}\((true|false)(;true|;false)*\)\[\d(,\d)*\]$");

if (pattern.IsMatch(s))
{
   // s is valid
}

If you want anything inside (), you can use following regex:

@"^\d{1,3}:[a-zA-z]{1,10}\([^:\(]*\)\[\d(,\d)*\]$"

Upvotes: 1

Ian Nelson
Ian Nelson

Reputation: 58753

This is one of those cases where your only sensible option is to use a Regular Expression.

My hasty attempt is something like:

var input = "24:Something(true;false;true)[0,1,0]";

var regex = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"^\d{1,3}:.{1,9}\(.*\)\[\d(,[\d])*\]$");

System.Diagnostics.Debug.Assert(regex.IsMatch(input));

This online RegEx tester should help refine the expression.

Upvotes: 2

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