Question

I have a list like

List<string> TempList = new List<string> { "[66,X,X]", "[67,X,2]", "[x,x,x]" };

I need to add data to the dictionary from the above list

Dictionary<int, int> Dict = new Dictionary<int, int>();

so the Dict should contain

Key --> 66 value --> 67

i need to take 66(first value) from first string([66,X,X]) and 67(first value) from second string( [67,X,X]) and add it as a key value pair into the dictionary.

Now i’m following string replacing and looping methodology to do this .

Is there any way to do this in LINQ or Regular expression.

Answer 1

Here is an example using both string.Split() and a Regex:

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<string> data = new List<string>() { "[66,X,X]", "[67,X,2]", "[x,x,x]" };
            addToDict(data);

            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        private static void addToDict(List<string> items)
        {
            string key = items[0].Split('[', ',')[1];
            string val = items[1].Split('[', ',')[1];

            string pattern = @"(?:^\[)(\d+)";
            Match m = Regex.Match(items[0], pattern);
            key = m.Groups[1].Value;
            m = Regex.Match(items[1], pattern);
            val = m.Groups[1].Value;

            _dict.Add(key, val);
        }

        static Dictionary<string, string> _dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    }
}

i suspect that your example is quite contrived though, so there may be a better solution especially if you need to process large numbers of strings into key/value pairs (i deliberately hardcoded index values because your example was quite simple and i didn’t want to over complicate the answer). If the input data is consistent in format then you can make assumptions like using fixed indexes, but if there is a possibility of some variance then there may need to be more code to check the validity of it.