Question

Using C#, how would you go about converting a String which also contains newline characters and tabs (4 spaces) from the following format

A {
   B {
      C = D
      E = F
   }
   G = H
}

into the following

A.B.C = D
A.B.E = F
A.G = H

Note that A to H are just place holders for String values which will not contain ‘{‘, ‘}’, and ‘=’ characters. The above is just an example and the actual String to convert can contain nesting of values which is infinitely deep and can also contain an infinite number of “? = ?”.

Answer 1

Not very pretty, but here’s an implementation that uses a stack:

static string Rewrite(string input)
{
    var builder = new StringBuilder();
    var stack = new Stack<string>();
    string[] lines = input.Split('\n');
    foreach (var s in lines)
    {
        if (s.Contains("{") || s.Contains("="))
        {
            stack.Push(s.Replace("{", String.Empty).Trim());
        }
        if (s.Contains("="))
        {
            builder.Append(string.Join(".", stack.Reverse().ToArray()));
            builder.Append(Environment.NewLine);
        }
        if (s.Contains("}") || s.Contains("="))
        {
            stack.Pop();
        }
   }
   return builder.ToString();
}