Question

I have this code to Format an string

string s = "the first number is: {0} and the last is: {1} ";
int first = 2, last = 5;
string f = String.Format(s, first, last);

I want to extract first and last from final formatted string(f).It means I want to de-format the f to extract first and last(I have the format base(s)).

there is a way that is this:

• extract them using string.Split()(hard and bad way)

but I think there is a simple solution in .Net but I don’t know what is this.

can anybody tell me what is the simple way?

Answer 1

Why not using some regex here ?

string s = "the first number is: {0} and the last is: {1} ";
int first = 2, last = 5;
string f = String.Format(s, first, last);

string pattern = @"the first number is: ([A-Za-z0-9\-]+) and the last is: ([A-Za-z0-9\-]+) ";
Regex regex = new Regex(pattern);
Match match = regex.Match(f);
if (match.Success)
{
    string firstMatch = match.Groups[1].Value;
    string secondMatch = match.Groups[2].Value;
}

You can obviously make it more robust with proper error checking.