Question

I have a large value on a String variable, I want to keep just some of it, I don’t know the exact position in the String in which my data is located as it could vary any time, but I know it’s in between specific tags, so how could I keep only what’s inside those tags?

Example of the kind of string I have:

Dim var as String = "
<random>     <stuffIDontNeed>      <x>1</x>      <x>2</x>      <x>3</x>     
</stuffIDontNeed>     <stuffIDoNeed>      <x>a</x>      <x>b</x>      <x>c</x>   
</stuffIDoNeed>    </random> "

It’s all inside the same String I just used multiple lines so it showed fully without scrolling.

So what I want to do is to get everything from where stuffIDoNeed starts to where it ends, tags and everything not only the values in them.

Answer 1

This will extract the substring from the input string (Please don’t use var as variable name, it is confusing)

Dim inputData as String = " " & _
        "<random>     <stuffIDontNeed>      <x>1</x>      <x>2</x>      <x>3</x>      " & _
        "</stuffIDontNeed>     <stuffIDoNeed>      <x>a</x>      <x>b</x>      <x>c</x>   "  & _
        "</stuffIDoNeed>    </random> " 

Dim result as string = string.Empty
Dim startPos = inputData.IndexOf("<stuffIDoNeed>")
Dim endPos = inputData.IndexOf("</stuffIDoNeed>")
if startPos > 0 AndAlso endPos > 0 andAlso endPos > startPos then
    result = inputData.SubString(startPos, endPos + 15 - startPos)
end if

Console.WriteLine(result)