Question

I have the following code that produces a MatchCollection:

var tmp3 = myregex.Matches(text_to_split);

The Matches in tmp3 are strings such as 93.4 and -276.2. What I really need is to convert this MatchCollection into an array of doubles. How can this be done?

Answer 1

You could use the double.Parse method to convert a string to double:

var tmp3 = myregex.Matches(text_to_split);
foreach (Match match in tmp3)
{
    double value = double.Parse(match.Value);
    // TODO : do something with the matches value
}

and if you are a LINQ and functional programming fan like me you could save a useless loop and directly convert your MatchCollection to an IEnumerable<double>:

var tmp3 = myregex.Matches(text_to_split);
var values = tmp3.Cast<Match>().Select(x => double.Parse(x.Value));

and if you needed a static array an additional .ToArray() call might be necessary:

var tmp3 = myregex.Matches(text_to_split);
var values = tmp3.Cast<Match>().Select(x => double.Parse(x.Value)).ToArray();

If you want a safe conversion you could use the double.TryParse method but if your regular expression is good enough and you have ensured that the string is in a proper format you should be OK.