Question

I wrote this code to get a set of characters until a specific character was read. I know there’s a better way but just of curiosity.
It didn’t work. The loop continued endlessly.
Why is this ???

foreach (char myChar in monthYear)
{
    do
    {
        whichMonth = whichMonth + myChar;
    } while (myChar.ToString() == "-");
}

Answer 1

Here’s what you are telling the compiler to do…

foreach (char myChar in monthYear)
{

    do  // Execute this piece of code
    {
        whichMonth = whichMonth + myChar;
    } while (myChar.ToString() == "-"); // While myChar is '-'

    // Here, the foreach loop moves to the next character
}

So, given the string 02-2013, here is the execution path of your code.

• foreach character in my monthYear
  • myChar = '0'
  • do
    • whichMonth = whichMonth + '0'
    • while(myChar == '-') Is false, exit while loop
  • myChar = '2'
  • do
    • whichMonth = whichMonth + '2'
    • while(myChar == '-') Is false, exit while loop
  • myChar = '-'
  • do
    • whichMonth = whichMonth + '-'
    • while(myChar == '-') Is true, continue while loop
    • whichMonth = whichMonth + '-'
    • while(myChar == '-') Is true, continue while loop
    • whichMonth = whichMonth + '-'
    • while(myChar == '-') Is true, continue while loop
    • … repeated ad infinitum …

Because of your while loop, it never actually goes to the next character when it hits ‘-‘. Instead, use a break statement:

foreach (char myChar in monthYear)
{
    whichMonth = whichMonth + myChar;

    if(myChar == '-') break;
}