Space delimiter

[simonc]

One of the things that drives me mad about vb.net is
spending time trying to make a program do something then
finding that there's already an inbuild procedure that
does exactly the same thing.

So before I begin on this can anyone tell me if there is
already a routine to do this:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a
single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?

Grateful for any ideas

[EricJ]

yust a thought
strNew = strOld.replace( " "," ")
you could put it in a for next loop if you want to replace 3,4,... spaces 2

eric

"simonc" <an*******@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:0d******** *************** *****@phx.gbl.. .

One of the things that drives me mad about vb.net is
spending time trying to make a program do something then
finding that there's already an inbuild procedure that
does exactly the same thing.

So before I begin on this can anyone tell me if there is
already a routine to do this:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a
single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?

Grateful for any ideas

[Cor]

Hi Simonc

In addition to Eric did I make it with stringbuilder,
you asked something new and this is a new function who is real much faster
than all old string replace funtions. But I don't know if there is not a
better way.

Dim a As String = "There is a lot of for air here"
Dim sb As New System.Text.Str ingBuilder(a)
Do While sb.ToString.Ind exOf(" ") > -1 '2 spaces
sb.Replace(" ", " ")
Loop
Dim b As String = sb.ToString
Dim c() As String = Split(b)
I hope this helps a little bit?

Cor
"simonc" <an*******@disc ussions.microso ft.com> schreef in bericht
news:0d******** *************** *****@phx.gbl.. .

One of the things that drives me mad about vb.net is
spending time trying to make a program do something then
finding that there's already an inbuild procedure that
does exactly the same thing.

So before I begin on this can anyone tell me if there is
already a routine to do this:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a
single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?

Grateful for any ideas

[Chris Dunaway]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 04:27:09 -0800, simonc wrote:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a
single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?

Yet another method is to use regular expressions. This expression replaces
all occurrences of 2 or more spaces with a single space.

Imports System.Text.Reg ularExpressions

strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

--
Chris

To send me an E-mail, remove the underscores and lunchmeat from my E-Mail
address.

[EricJ]

i think we have a winner :)
ill have a look at those 2 ;)

Imports System.Text.Reg ularExpressions
strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

[AlexS]

Possibly more reliable way would be to use

Regex.Replace(y ourStr,@"\s+",@ "\s");

Please check definition of \s in regular expressions reference

HTH
Alex
"Chris Dunaway" <dunawayc@_lunc hmeat_sbcglobal .net> wrote in message
news:hg******** *************** ******@40tude.n et...

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 04:27:09 -0800, simonc wrote:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a
single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?
Yet another method is to use regular expressions. This expression

replaces all occurrences of 2 or more spaces with a single space.

Imports System.Text.Reg ularExpressions

strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

--
Chris

To send me an E-mail, remove the underscores and lunchmeat from my E-Mail
address.

[Cor]

Hi Eric,

Did you test it?

strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

This is 50 to 100 times slower than that loop with the stringbuilder.

(I did test it)

So it depends on the size of the string what to use.

Cor

[Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook]]

Simonc,
But wait there is more! ;-)

I would not bother with the Replace if I was using the Regular Expression.

I would simply do the Split based on the Regular Expression!

Imports System.Text.Reg ularExpressions
Dim strNew() As String ' an array of strings

Split based on one or more space characters:
strNew = Regex.Split(str Old, " +")

Alternatively you can split based on whitespace characters.
strNew = Regex.Split(str Old, "\s+")

"\s" which is a short cut for white space, includes more than just the space
character.

Hope this helps
Jay
"simonc" <an*******@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:10******** *************** *****@phx.gbl.. . Many thanks. I like this one best of all.

Simon C

-----Original Message-----
On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 04:27:09 -0800, simonc wrote:

I am dividing up a delimited textstring using
string.split. The delimiter character is a space, but
where there are adjacent spaces I want to treat these as a single delimiter. What is the smart way to do this?

Yet another method is to use regular expressions. This

expression replaces

all occurrences of 2 or more spaces with a single space.

Imports System.Text.Reg ularExpressions

strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

--
Chris

To send me an E-mail, remove the underscores and

lunchmeat from my E-Mail

address.
.

[Chris Dunaway]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 17:51:13 +0100, Cor wrote:

Hi Eric,

Did you test it?

strNew = Regex.Replace(s trOld, " {2,}", " ")

This is 50 to 100 times slower than that loop with the stringbuilder.

(I did test it)

So it depends on the size of the string what to use.

Cor

Thanks for pointing that out, but I am not seeing that. Here is the code I
used to time it. Here are the results:

First Run:

Method1: 156225 ticks
Method2: 0 ticks

Second Run (And every run after that):

Method1: 0 ticks
Method2: 0 ticks

Any idea why the first run on the regular expression would be slower, but
each subsequent run is not?

Thanks

'\\\\\\
Private Sub Button1_Click(. ..) Handles Button1.Click

Dim sNumber As String
Dim sResult As String
Dim ts As TimeSpan
Dim dStart As DateTime

sNumber = "This is a test string with lots of spaces"
dStart = Now
sResult = Method1(sNumber )
ts = Now.Subtract(dS tart)
MsgBox(sResult & " Elapsed Time (1): " & ts.Ticks.ToStri ng & " Ticks.")

dStart = Now
sResult = Method2(sNumber )
ts = Now.Subtract(dS tart)

MsgBox(sResult & " Elapsed Time (2): " & ts.Ticks.ToStri ng & " Ticks.")

End Sub

Private Function Method1(ByVal sInput As String) As String
Return RegularExpressi ons.Regex.Repla ce(sInput, " {2,}", " ")
End Function

Private Function Method2(ByVal sInput As String) As String
Dim sb As New System.Text.Str ingBuilder(sInp ut)
Do While sb.ToString.Ind exOf(" ") > -1
sb.Replace(" ", " ")
Loop
Return sb.ToString
End Function

'//////
--
Chris

To send me an E-mail, remove the underscores and lunchmeat from my E-Mail
address.

[Chris Dunaway]

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003 13:47:46 -0600, Jay B. Harlow [MVP - Outlook] wrote:

Simonc,
But wait there is more! ;-)

I would not bother with the Replace if I was using the Regular Expression.

I would simply do the Split based on the Regular Expression!

"We're not worthy!, We're not worthy!"

:)

I forgot about the split method in the RegEx!

--
Chris

To send me an E-mail, remove the underscores and lunchmeat from my E-Mail
address.