Question

Alright, so I have a text file with some data in it, in this format:

Info1-Info2
Info3-Info4
Info5-Info6

With my program, I would like to be able to get the contents of a line, based on the first piece of information I give. So, if I give “Info3”, I would like to be able to get the value “Info4” and place it into a string.

I have the text from the text file stored in a string already, so I just need to manipulate the string so that I can get the information that I want.

Sorry if I explained this in a bad way. Thanks!

Answer 1

I’d use an IDictionary instead.

When reading from your file put the left part (before “-“) as the Dictionary Key and the right part as the Value.

Then you can just get the value by the key:

dictionary[“Info3”] will return “Info4”.

Let me know if you need some actual code…

EDIT: Adding code

namespace ConsoleApplication2 {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            string line;
            //initialize Dictionary

            var keyMatch = new Dictionary<string, string>();
            //opening the file
            using (TextReader re = File.OpenText("Sample.txt")) {
                //loop through lines
                while ((line = re.ReadLine()) != null) {
                    keyMatch.Add(line.Substring(0, line.IndexOf("-")), line.Substring(line.IndexOf("-") + 1));
                }
            }

            var test = keyMatch["Info5"];
        }
    }
}