Cut off the end of a string

Question

I need to figure out how to remove the end of a string. The only trouble is, the string itself is not set. All I want to keep is the first 3-4 characters in the string.

string Location = "110 - Main Road";
string Location = "123 - Highway";
string Location = "234 - My House";

It could also be;

string Location = "1120 - Main Road";

I know if I can cut it down to the first 4 characters, I can just use .Trim() to remove the white spaces if it is only 3 characters, but I don't know how to cut it down to the first 4 characters?

Answer 1

You can use Split and get your number like this:

string Location = "1120 - Main Road";
int number = int.Parse(Location.Split()[0]);

This should work if there is no white-space before the number.If there is then use StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries:

int number = int.Parse(Location.Split(new []{ ' ' }, 
              StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)[0]);

Answer 2

split on spaces, then grab whatever is first, ignore the rest.

string GrabNumber(string input)
{
    return input.Split(' ')[0];
}

assuming you want it as an integer you can take it a step further:

int GrabNumber(string input)
{
    return int.Parse(input.Split(' ')[0]);
}

Answer 3

You can use String.Split() function to split your string based on delimeter - and then you can convert the first part of the string into integer if you want it in a Integer variable.

Solution 1: if you want to get first part of string as as string.

string Location = "11056 - Main Road";
Location = Location.Split('-')[0].Trim();

Solution 2: if you want to get the first part of the string as integer value.

string Location = "11056 - Main Road";
int num;
int.TryParse(Location.Split('-')[0],out num);

Answer 4

Just use a Substring call with a String.IndexOf, for example

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
public class Test
{
    public static void Main()
    {

        List<string> strings  = new List<string>();
        strings.Add("110 - Main Road");
        strings.Add("1104 - Main Road");
        strings.Add("11088 - Main Road");

        foreach(string s in strings){
            Console.WriteLine(s.Substring(0,s.IndexOf("-",0)-1));

        }
    }
}

That way even if the street number is 4,5,6,7 characters long this will still work

Answer 5

If you just want the first 4 characters you would do this:

Location = Location.Substring(0, 4);

The first argument is the start position and the second argument is the length.

Answer 6

use the substring function of string(startIndex,numberOfCharToKeep) like this:

string Location = "110 - Main Road";
string NewLocation = Location.SubString(0,4); 

this keeps your first 4 chars

Answer 7

Depends on how reliable your input is. If you will always have a space after the numbers you can find that location using IndexOf. However, whenever I work with strings I prefer regular expressions. Here is an example of both approaches:

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string[] locations = 
        { 
            "110 - Main Road", 
            "123 - Highway", 
            "234 - My House", 
            "1120 - Main Road" 
        };

        Regex r = new Regex(@"^\d+");

        foreach (string location in locations)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(location.Substring(0, location.IndexOf(' ')));
            Console.WriteLine(r.Match(location).Captures[0].Value);
        }
    }
}