Create comma separated string from portion of strings in C# List

Question

I have a C# List that I want to create a comma separate string. I've found other answers on SO that deal with this, but my particular case I want to only use a portion of the values in the List to create the string.

If my List contained these values:

"Foo" "Bar" "Car"

and I wanted to create a string

Foo, Bar and Car.

I could use this code:

string.Format("{0} and {1}.", 
              string.Join(", ", myList.Take(myList.Count - 1)), 
              myList.Last());

However, my list is actual formed of jSON values like so

{ Name = "Foo" }
{ Name = "Bar" }
{ Name = "Car" }

So the above code results in:

{ Name = "Foo" }, { Name = "Bar" } and { Name = "Car" }.

How would I construct the string such that I only use the Foo, Bar and Car values in the list?

Update

Thanks to @StevePy, this is what I ended up with:

string.Format("{0} and {1}.", 
              string.Join(", ", myList.Select(x => x.Name).ToList().Take(myList.Count - 1)), 
              myList.Select(x => x.Name).ToList().Last());

Is your list a List<string> and each string is of the type "{ Name = "Foo" }" ? — Ravi Y
– Ravi Y, Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 6:10
so what's the actual output that you need? will you include and to your json response? — Ulises
– Ulises, Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 6:12
You might want to look at this: stackoverflow.com/questions/5409890/… — 001
– 001, Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 6:12
You can optimize that solution a bit for the last item by using myList.Last().Name to avoid re-listing the items. Or probably a bit better: myList[myList.Count -1].Name Not as suscinct, but I think .Last() still iterates over the entire set. — Steve Py
– Steve Py, Commented Dec 20, 2012 at 13:33

horgh · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-20 06:26:29Z

2

If you need to operate with strings, just grab the necessary part of each string with, for example, String.IndexOf and String.LastIndexOf methods:

List<string> myList = new List<string> { 
    "{ Name = \"Foo\" }",
    "{ Name = \"Bar\" }",
    "{ Name = \"Car\" }"
};

var temp = myList.Select(x =>
    {
        int index = x.IndexOf("\"") + 1;
        return x.Substring(index, x.LastIndexOf("\"") - index);
    })
    .ToList();

string result = string.Format("{0} and {1}.",
                              string.Join(", ", temp.Take(myList.Count - 1)),
                              temp.Last());

edited Dec 20, 2012 at 6:26

answered Dec 20, 2012 at 6:21

horgh

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Steve Py · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-20 06:12:05Z

1

Linq should help.

var nameList = myList.Select(x=>x.Name).ToList();

answered Dec 20, 2012 at 6:12

Steve Py

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Ricco E · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-20 06:14:58Z

0

you can use JsonConvert.toString to get the value of your list item, or if you used a json serialization, you could use the JsonConvert.Deserialization

answered Dec 20, 2012 at 6:14

Ricco E

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1 Comment

horgh Over a year ago

You could probably provide some code example for this to worth being an answer?

Ionică Bizău · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-20 08:36:35Z

0

I built a method that will do this for you:

static string ConvertToMyStyle(List<string> input)
{
    string result = "";

    foreach(string item in input)
    {
        if(input.IndexOf(item) != input.ToArray().Length-1)
            result += item + ", ";
        else
            result += "and " + item + ".";
    }
    return result;
}

answered Dec 20, 2012 at 8:36

Ionică Bizău

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Alan · Accepted Answer · 2017-08-22 21:02:42Z

0

this handles the single item case

protected string FormatWithOxfordCommas(List<string> reasons)
        {
            string result = "";
            if (reasons.Count == 1)
                result += reasons[0];
            else
            {
                foreach (string item in reasons)
                {
                    if (reasons.IndexOf(item) != reasons.Count - 1)
                        result += item + ", ";
                    else
                        result += "and " + item + ".";
                }
            }
            return result;
        }

answered Aug 22, 2017 at 21:02

Alan

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