Question

I have a file containing likes written like this:

[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].

E.g.:

[Person]: [Age]-[21], [HairColor]-[Turqoise], [Gender]-[Other].

While I’m familiar with Linq, I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out how I would parse this, using Linq.

I’d like to be able to just go over all the lines:

[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].
[NAME]: [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE], [PROPERTY]-[VALUE].

… And do something with each person retrieved.

Any ideas? Any help at all will be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Here is an example, if I’ve got what you need correctly, of course:

        File.ReadAllLines("Utils.txt")
            .Select(s => new
            {
                Name = s.Substring(1, s.IndexOf("]:") - 1),
                Values = s.Substring(s.IndexOf(":") + 2)
                          .Split(new string[] { ", " }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
                          .ToDictionary(l => l.Substring(1, l.IndexOf("]-") - 1),
                                        l => l.Substring(l.IndexOf("-[") + 2).Trim(']'))
            })
            .ToList()
            .ForEach(o =>
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(o.Name);
                    o.Values.ToList().ForEach(p => Console.WriteLine(string.Format("\t{0}:\t{1}", p.Key, p.Value)));
                });

So, here you get a list of anonymous objects with two properties:

1. Name just a string
2. Values – a dictionary of pairs where a key is your property and a value is your value

In my example I do a simple loop through what I’ve read, printing it into the console

The content of the test file (Utils.txt) was the following:

[NAME]: [PROPERTY1]-[VALUE1], [PROPERTY2]-[VALUE2], [PROPERTY3]-[VALUE3] 
[Person]: [Age]-[21], [HairColor]-[Turqoise], [Gender]-[Other]

The output:

NAME
    PROPERTY1:  VALUE1
    PROPERTY2:  VALUE2
    PROPERTY3:  VALUE3
Person
    Age:    21
    HairColor:  Turqoise
    Gender: Other