Splitting a string by another string

Question

I got a string which I need to separate by another string which is a substring of the original one. Let's say I got the following text:

string s = "<DOC>something here <TEXT> and some stuff here </TEXT></DOC>"

And I want to retrieve:

"and some stuff here"

I need to get the string between the "<TEXT>" and his locker "</TEXT>".

I don't manage to do so with the common split method of string even though one of the function parameters is of type string[]. What I am trying is :

Console.Write(s.Split("<TEXT>")); // Which doesn't compile

Thanks in advance for your kind help.

Your example suggests that you are not splitting, but extracting. — Olivier Jacot-Descombes
– Olivier Jacot-Descombes, Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 18:32
Seems a lot like XML. If it is, load it up in XDocument and do a xpath select on the XML DOM. — Mikael Svenson
– Mikael Svenson, Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 18:36

Sergey Kalinichenko · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 18:39:36Z

2

var start = s.IndexOf("<TEXT>");
var end = s.IndexOf("</TEXT>", start+1);
string res;
if (start >= 0 && end > 0) {
    res = s.Substring(start, end-start-1).Trim();
} else {
    res = "NOT FOUND";
}

edited Dec 3, 2011 at 18:39

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 18:33

Sergey Kalinichenko

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1 Comment

Ash Burlaczenko Over a year ago

The indexOf for end should start the search from the value of start.

Matt Tsōnto · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 18:35:00Z

1

Splitting on "<TEXT>" isn't going to help you in this case anyway, since the close tag is "</TEXT>".

The most robust solution would be to parse it properly as XML. C# provides functionality for doing that. The second example at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc189056%28v=vs.95%29.aspx should put you on the right track.

However, if you're just looking for a quick-and-dirty one-time solution your best bet is going to be to hand-code something, such as dasblinkenlight's solution above.

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 18:35

Matt Tsōnto

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Otiel · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 18:59:09Z

1

var output = new List<String>();
foreach (Match match in Regex.Matches(source, "<TEXT>(.*?)</TEXT>")) {
    output.Add(match.Groups[1].Value);
}

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 18:59

Otiel

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1 Comment

Nadav Over a year ago

the output list containst nothing (thanks alot for trying to help)

Olivier Jacot-Descombes · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 23:21:36Z

1

string s = "<DOC>something here <TEXT> and some stuff here </TEXT></DOC>";
string result = Regex.Match(s, "(?<=<TEXT>).*?(?=</TEXT>)").Value;

EDIT: I am using this regex pattern (?<=prefix)find(?=suffix) which will match a position between a prefix and a suffix.

EDIT 2: Find several results:

MatchCollection matches = Regex.Matches(s, "(?<=<TEXT>).*?(?=</TEXT>)");
foreach (Match match in matches) {
    Console.WriteLine(match.Value);
}

edited Dec 3, 2011 at 23:21

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 18:40

Olivier Jacot-Descombes

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1 Comment

Nadav Over a year ago

i will need to get acouple of reasults is there some sort of way to get alot of reasults in this way ... my string includes alot of <TEXT></TEXT>

Jarek · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-03 18:37:19Z

0

If last tag is </doc> then you could use XElement.Load to load XML and then go through it to discover wanted element (you could also use Linq To XML).

If this is not necessarily correct XML string, you could always go with Regural Expressions to find desired part of text. In this case expression should not be to hard to write it yourself.

answered Dec 3, 2011 at 18:37

Jarek

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