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.

Answer 2

Simple (and naive) extension method :

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("731478718861993983".InsertChar("-", 4));
    }
}

static class Ext
{
    public static string InsertChar(this string str, string c, int i)
    {
        for (int j = str.Length - i; j >= 0; j -= i)
        {
            str = str.Insert(j, c);
        }

        return str;
    }
}

Answer 3

By using regex:

    public static string FormatTest1(string num)
    {
        string formatPattern = @"(\d{2})(\d{4})(\d{4})(\d{4})(\d{4})";
        return Regex.Replace(num, formatPattern, "$1-$2-$3-$4-$5");
    }

    // test
    string test = FormatTest1("731478718861993983");
    // test result: 73-1478-7188-6199-3983

Answer 4

string myString = 731478718861993983;
myString.Insert(2,"-");
myString.Insert(7,"-");
myString.Insert(13,"-");
myString.Insert(18,"-");