Question

Here’s what I’ve got, I need to keep the console from returning additional commas on the main program, so I probably need to rewrite string e. Month, description etc. should still have commas, but if something like “note” is absent, those additional commas would be gone.

    public override string ToString()
    {
        string e = description + ", " + month + day + year + ", " + amount.ToString("C") + ", ";
            e = e + paymentMethod + ", " +  trip + ", " + note;

        return e;

    }

Answer 1

You can try something like this, to filter out empty elements:

public override string ToString()
{
    string[] elements = new string[] { description, 
                String.Concat(month, day, year),
                amount.ToString("C"), paymentMethod, trip, note };

    return String.Join(", ", elements.Where(s => !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(s)));
}

A little more verbose option, but also less confusing and C# 2 compatible:

private static void AddIfNotNull(List<string> elements, string value)
{
    if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
        elements.Add(value);
}

public override string ToString()
{
    List<string> elements = new List<string>();
    AddIfNotNull(elements, description);
    elements.Add(String.Concat(month, day, year));
    elements.Add(amount.ToString("C"));
    AddIfNotNull(elements, paymentMethod);
    AddIfNotNull(elements, trip);
    AddIfNotNull(elements, note);
    return String.Join(", ", elements.ToArray());
}