Question

I’ve been trying to find a way to combine 2 strings from a single text file. The text file that I am reading has the following format:

String 1
String 2
String 3
…etc.
Sample Code:

public static IEnumerable<string> getMeaningfulLines(string filename)
    {
        System.IO.StreamReader file =
          new System.IO.StreamReader(filename);
        while (!file.EndOfStream)
        {

            yield return file.ReadLine();
            yield return file.ReadLine();

            file.ReadLine();
            file.ReadLine();
            file.ReadLine();
            file.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {


        foreach (string line in getMeaningfulLines(@"C://Log.txt"))
        {




            string teststring = line;

            string[] parts = line.Split(' ', ',', '-', '>', '[', ']');
            StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();


            foreach (string h in parts)
            {
                builder.Append(h).Append(" ");

            }

            string result = builder.ToString();
            string cleanedString = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(result, @"\s+", " ");
            string trimString = cleanedString.Trim();

            trimString = trimString.Remove(trimString.Length - 1);


            //Console.WriteLine(trimString);

            string[] parts2 = trimString.Split(' ');
            string quotedstring = "'" + string.Join("','", parts2) + "'";
            //Console.WriteLine(quotedstring);
            string[] parts3 = quotedstring.Split(' ');
            Console.WriteLine(quotedstring, quotedstring.Length);
            //Console.WriteLine("1) The length of '{0}' is {1}",  quotedstring, quotedstring.Length);

I would want to append string 2 to string 1 to have: “String1 String2”. I tried using the split method and appended them using a string builder. However, this does not work because its doing the splitting and appending per line. I also cant use “.” to combine them because they are not stored in variables. Does anyone know how to achieve this or an example? Thank you.

Answer 1

The text file that I am reading has the following format:
String 1
String 2
String 3 …etc. I would want to append string 2 to string 1 to have: “String1 String2”.

If you would like to append each line in your file, with a space between them, then do this:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("my_file.txt");
string result = string.Join(" ", lines);

If the lines of the file have structure, then you can define a class to hold this structure, e.g.:

class Company
{
  private string name;
  private int id; 
  private string city;
  private string state;

  public string Name { get { return name; } }
  public int Id  { get { return id; } } 
  public string City { get { return city; } }
  public string State { get { return state; } }

  public Company(string name, int id, string city, string state) 
  {
    this.name = name;
    this.id = id;
    this.city = city;
    this.state = state; 
  }

  public override string ToString() 
  {
    // Create a formatted string from the fields here, for example:
    return name + " " + id + " " + city + " " + state;
  }

  public static Company FromLine(string line)
  {
    // Extract the fields from a line, and post-process the fields here, for example:
    string[] tokens = line.Split(separators);
    string name = tokens[0].Trim();
    int id = Convert.ToInt32(tokens[1]);
    string city = tokens[2];
    string state = tokens[3];
    return new Company(name, id, city, state);
  }
}

This class can be used to extract the fields of each line, format them, and append these formatted strings:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("my_file.txt");
List<Company> companies = new List<Company>();
foreach (string line in lines)
  companies.Add(Company.FromLine(line));
string result = string.Join(" ", companies);

You can even specify which items to append, just modify the last line e.g. like this:

string result = string.Join(" ", companies.Where(company => company.Id > 10));