formatting string in MVC /C#

Question

I have a string 731478718861993983 and I want to get this 73-1478-7188-6199-3983 using C#. How can I format it like this ?

Thanks.

Answer 1

LINQ-only one-liner:

var str = "731478718861993983";
var result = 
    new string(
        str.ToCharArray().
            Reverse(). // So that it will go over string right-to-left
            Select((c, i) => new { @char = c, group = i / 4}). // Keep group number
            Reverse(). // Restore original order
            GroupBy(t => t.group). // Now do the actual grouping
            Aggregate("", (s, grouping) => "-" + new string(
                grouping.
                    Select(gr => gr.@char).
                    ToArray())).
            ToArray()).
    Trim('-');

This can handle strings of arbitrary lenghs.