The .NET Framework gives us the Format method:
string s = string.Format(\"This {0} very {1}.\", \"is\", \"funny\");
// s is now: \"This is very funny.\"
I came across the same problem, i belive that there is a elegante solution using REGEX... but a came up with function in C# to "UnFormat" that works quite well. Sorry about the lack of comments.
/// <summary>
/// Unformats a string using the original formating string.
///
/// Tested Situations:
/// UnFormat("<nobr alt=\"1\">1<nobr>", "<nobr alt=\"{0}\">{0}<nobr>") : "1"
/// UnFormat("<b>2</b>", "<b>{0}</b>") : "2"
/// UnFormat("3<br/>", "{0}<br/>") : "3"
/// UnFormat("<br/>4", "<br/>{0}") : "4"
/// UnFormat("5", "") : "5"
/// UnFormat("<nobr>6<nobr>", "<nobr>{0}<nobr>") : "6"
/// UnFormat("<nobr>2009-10-02<nobr>", "<nobr>{0:yyyy-MM-dd}<nobr>") : "2009-10-02"
/// UnFormat("<nobr><nobr>", "<nobr>{0}<nobr>") : ""
/// UnFormat("bla", "<nobr>{0}<nobr>") : "bla"
/// </summary>
/// <param name="original"></param>
/// <param name="formatString"></param>
/// <returns>If an "unformat" is not possible the original string is returned.</returns>
private Dictionary<int,string> UnFormat(string original, string formatString)
{
Dictionary<int, string> returnList = new Dictionary<int, string>();
try{
int index = -1;
// Decomposes Format String
List<string> formatDecomposed = new List<string> (formatString.Split('{'));
for(int i = formatDecomposed.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
index = formatDecomposed[i].IndexOf('}') + 1;
if (index > 0 && (formatDecomposed[i].Length - index) > 0)
{
formatDecomposed.Insert(i + 1, formatDecomposed[i].Substring(index, formatDecomposed[i].Length - index));
formatDecomposed[i] = formatDecomposed[i].Substring(0, index);
}
else
//Finished
break;
}
// Finds and indexes format parameters
index = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < formatDecomposed.Count; i++)
{
if (formatDecomposed[i].IndexOf('}') < 0)
{
index += formatDecomposed[i].Length;
}
else
{
// Parameter Index
int parameterIndex;
if (formatDecomposed[i].IndexOf(':')< 0)
parameterIndex = Convert.ToInt16(formatDecomposed[i].Substring(0, formatDecomposed[i].IndexOf('}')));
else
parameterIndex = Convert.ToInt16(formatDecomposed[i].Substring(0, formatDecomposed[i].IndexOf(':')));
// Parameter Value
if (returnList.ContainsKey(parameterIndex) == false)
{
string parameterValue;
if (formatDecomposed.Count > i + 1)
if (original.Length > index)
parameterValue = original.Substring(index, original.IndexOf(formatDecomposed[i + 1], index) - index);
else
// Original String not valid
break;
else
parameterValue = original.Substring(index, original.Length - index);
returnList.Add(parameterIndex, parameterValue);
index += parameterValue.Length;
}
else
index += returnList[parameterIndex].Length;
}
}
// Fail Safe #1
if (returnList.Count == 0) returnList.Add(0, original);
}
catch
{
// Fail Safe #2
returnList = new Dictionary<int, string>();
returnList.Add(0, original);
}
return returnList;
}
You could do string[] parts = string.Split(' '), and then extract by the index position parts[1] and parts [3] in your example.
There's no such method, probably because of problems resolving ambiguities:
string.Unformat("This {0} very {1}.", "This is very very funny.")
// are the parameters equal to "is" and "very funny", or "is very" and "funny"?
Regular expression capturing groups are made for this problem; you may want to look into them.
I reference earlier reply, wrote a sample see following
string sampleinput = "FirstWord.22222";
Match match = Regex.Match(sampleinput, @"(\w+)\.(\d+)$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
if(match.Success){
string totalmatchstring = match.Groups[0]; // FirstWord.22222
string firstpart = match.Groups[1]; // FirstWord`
string secondpart = match.Groups[2]; // 22222
}
If anyone's interested, I've just posted a scanf()
replacement for .NET. If regular expressions don't quite cut it for you, my code follows the scanf()
format string quite closely.
You can see and download the code I wrote at http://www.blackbeltcoder.com/Articles/strings/a-sscanf-replacement-for-net.
Regex with grouping?
/This (.*?) very (.*?)./