How to Fill & Display Empty Element in Array With Text

Question

So I have this piece of code:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    string name = "John; Jill;";
    string[] arrayOfString = new string[6];
    arrayOfString = name.Split(';');

    for(int i = 0; i < arrayOfString.Length; i++)
    {

        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(arrayOfString[i]))
        {
            arrayOfString[i] = "EMPTY";
        }
        Console.WriteLine(arrayOfString[i].Trim());  
    }
}

If I ran this code, then the result is:

John
Jill
EMPTY

But what I want to do is display it to something like this:

John
Jill
EMPTY
EMPTY
EMPTY
EMPTY

I tried using length as you can see, but it only counts the elements in array that already has a value in it. Can anyone help me with this problem? Thanks in advance.

Jon Skeet · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-19 04:42:50Z

11

The problem is that you're creating an array with 6 elements here:

string[] arrayOfString = new string[6];

... but then reassigning arrayOfString, which means you're completely ignoring the previous value, here:

arrayOfString = name.Split(';');

So after this statement, arrayOfString only has 3 elements, and your original 6-element array is eligible for garbage collection.

If you always want 6 elements, you should copy the results of Split into that existing array:

string[] arrayOfString = new string[6];
string[] split = name.Split(';', 6); // At most 6 strings
Array.Copy(split, 0, arrayOfString, 0, split.Length);

answered Nov 19, 2018 at 4:42

Jon Skeet

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1 Comment

waifuslayer Over a year ago

Thank you for your answer, I see what I did wrong now. Thanks for the help.

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