Question

I am writing a app in .NET which will generate random text based on some input. So if I have text like "I love your {lovely|nice|great} dress" I want to choose randomly from lovely/nice/great and use that in text. Any suggestions in C# or VB.NET are welcome.

Answer 1

You could do it using a regex to make a replacement for each {...}. The Regex.Replace function can take a MatchEvaluator which can do the logic for selecting a random value from the choices:

Random random = new Random();
string s = "I love your {lovely|nice|great} dress";
s = Regex.Replace(s, @"\{(.*?)\}", match => {
    string[] options = match.Groups[1].Value.Split('|');
    int index = random.Next(options.Length);
    return options[index];
});
Console.WriteLine(s);

Example output:

I love your lovely dress

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Update: Translated to VB.NET automatically using .NET Reflector:

Dim random As New Random
Dim s As String = "I love your {lovely|nice|great} dress"
s = Regex.Replace(s, "\{(.*?)\}", Function (ByVal match As Match) 
    Dim options As String() = match.Groups.Item(1).Value.Split(New Char() { "|"c })
    Dim index As Integer = random.Next(options.Length)
    Return options(index)
End Function)