Question

I usually add some strings from a text file into a list or array line by line, although I am now using “#”‘s as separators in the text file. How would it be possible to read the two strings “softpedia.com” and “download.com” into a list using the two “#” signs as a breaking point? Baring in mind that there might be more or less strings inbetween the two hashes

e.g.

# Internal Hostnames
softpedia.com
download.com
# External Hostnames

Expected output:

softpedia.com
download.com

Answer 1

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        using (var reader = File.OpenText("test.txt"))
        {
            foreach (var line in Parse(reader))
            {
                Console.WriteLine(line);
            }
        }
    }

    public static IEnumerable<string> Parse(StreamReader reader)
    {
        string line;
        bool first = false;
        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            if (!line.StartsWith("#"))
            {
                if (first)
                {
                    yield return line;
                }
            }
            else if (!first)
            {
                first = true;
            }
            else
            {
                yield break;
            }
        }
    }
}

and if you wanted to just get them in a list:

using (var reader = File.OpenText("test.txt"))
{
    List<string> hostnames = Parse(reader).ToList();
}