Question

My aim is to “Sanitize a string”.

The class should do:

• trim an input
• make the first letter upper case.

Could you please tell me:

• Is there a way to better code it?

• Would it make sense to use a PARAMETER for a method like: CapitalizeFirstLetterTrim(string x)

  • when I initiate an object I need write a lot of code like below, any other way to make it shorter?

    UserInputSanitizer myInput = new UserInputSanitizer();
    myInput.Input = "            ciao world";
    string ouput = myInput.CapitalizeFirstLetterTrim();
    

Useful resource http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb311042.aspx

———– CLASS

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
namespace WebProject.Core.Utilities
{
    public class UserInputSanitizer
    {
        // Backing variables
        private string _input;
        // Properties
        public string Input
        {
            set { _input = value; }
        }
        private string _output;

        // Backing variables
        // Properties
        public string Output
        {
            get { return _output; }
        }

        public string CapitalizeFirstLetterTrim()
        {
            // Trim
            _input.Trim();
            // Make First letter UpperCase and the rest levae lower case
            _output = _input.Substring(0, 1).ToUpper() + _input.Substring(1);
            return Output;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

I would use an extension method for the string class:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace WebProject.Core.Utilities
{
    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static string Sanitize(this string s)
        {
            //your code to sanitize your string, for example
            if(s == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("s");
            var trimmed = input.Trim();
            return System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ToTitleCase(trimmed);
        }
    }
}

Then you can use:

string s = "    UnsanitizedString";
s = s.Sanitize();