Question

PHP developer here working with c#.
I’m using a technique to remove a block of text from a large string by exploding the string into an array and then shifting the first element out of the array and turning what remains back into a string.

With PHP (an awesome & easy language) it was just

$array = explode('somestring',$string);
array_shift($array);
$newstring = implode(' ', $array);

and I’m done.

I get so mad at c# for not allowing me to create dynamic arrays and for not offering me default functions that can do the same thing as PHP regarding arrays. Instead of dynamic arrays I have to create lists and predefine key structures etc. But I’m new and I’m sure there are still equally graceful ways to do the same with c#.

Will someone show me a clean way to accomplish this goal with c#?

Rephrase of question: How can I remove the first element from an array using c# code.

Here is how far I’ve gotten, but RemoveAt throws a error while debugging so I don’t believe it works:

//scoop-out feed header information
if (entry_start != "")
{
    string[] parts = Regex.Split(this_string, @entry_start);
    parts.RemoveAt(0);
    this_string = String.Join(" ", parts);
}

Answer 1

I get so mad at c# for not allowing me to create dynamic arrays

You may take a look at the List<T> class. Its RemoveAt might be worth checking.

But for your particular scenario you could simply use LINQ and the Skip extension method (don’t forget to add using System.Linq; to your file in order to bring it into scope):

if (entry_start != "")
{
    string[] parts = Regex.Split(this_string, @entry_start).Skip(1).ToArray();
    this_string = String.Join(" ", parts);
}