Easiest way to split a string on newlines in .NET?

Question

I need to split a string into newlines in .NET and the only way I know of to split strings is with the Split method. However that will not allow me to (easily) split on a ne

Answer 1

Try to avoid using string.Split for a general solution, because you'll use more memory everywhere you use the function -- the original string, and the split copy, both in memory. Trust me that this can be one hell of a problem when you start to scale -- run a 32-bit batch-processing app processing 100MB documents, and you'll crap out at eight concurrent threads. Not that I've been there before...

Instead, use an iterator like this;

    public static IEnumerable SplitToLines(this string input)
    {
        if (input == null)
        {
            yield break;
        }

        using (System.IO.StringReader reader = new System.IO.StringReader(input))
        {
            string line;
            while( (line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
            {
                yield return line;
            }
        }
    }

This will allow you to do a more memory efficient loop around your data;

foreach(var line in document.SplitToLines()) 
{
    // one line at a time...
}

Of course, if you want it all in memory, you can do this;

var allTheLines = document.SplitToLines.ToArray();