Create user-readable, display-friendly formatted string from List

Question

I know several questions have been asked and answered about how to create a comma delimited string from a list. I'm looking for help on something slightly different.

What I would like to do is create a display-friendly human-readable string from a List<string> that reads like "A, B and C are invalid values". The grammar and format of the string should change based on the number of items in the list. The list could contain any number of items.

For example:

List<string> myString = new List<string>() { "Scooby", "Dooby", "Doo" };
// Should return "Scooby, Dooby and Doo are invalid values."

List<string> myString = new List<string>() { "Scooby", "Dooby" };
// Should return "Scooby and Dooby are invalid values."

List<string> myString = new List<string>() { "Scooby" };
// Should return "Scooby is an invalid value."

Here's what I've done so far:

string userMessage = "";
foreach(string invalidValue in invalidValues)
{
  userMessage = " " + userMessage + invalidValue + ",";
}

// Remove the trailing comma
userMessage = userMessage.Substring(0, userMessage.LastIndexOf(','));

if (invalidValues.Count > 1)
{
  int lastCommaLocation = userMessage.LastIndexOf(',');
  userMessage = userMessage.Substring(0, lastCommaLocation) + " and " + userMessage.Substring(lastCommaLocation + 1) + " are invalid values.";
}
else 
{
  userMessage = userMessage + " is an invalid value.";
}

Is there a better or more efficient way to do this?

Maybe you can check how is the Rails [Array#to_sentence](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/Array.html#method-i-to_sentence) is implemented... — nemesv, Sep 25 '12 at 19:18
I had a hard time finding exactly this thing, using Google. I'm glad you asked it, even so long ago, and even gladder someone gave a nice succinct answer. — Le Mot Juiced, Feb 07 '20 at 18:03

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '12 at 19:21

8

public static string FormatList(List<string> invalidItems)
{
    if(invalidItems.Count == 0) return string.Empty;
    else if(invalidItems.Count == 1) return string.Format("{0} is an invalid value", invalidItems[0]);
    else return string.Format("{0} and {1} are invalid values", string.Join(", ", invalidItems.Take(invalidItems.Count - 1)), invalidItems.Last());
}

answered Sep 25 '12 at 19:21

Lee

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Great answer. This is why I love Stack Overflow. – Jason Towne Sep 25 '12 at 19:27

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '20 at 18:02

Heavily indebted to @Lee in his other answer, here's a much-expanded version of his method. It allows you to specify a beginning text and/or an ending text, and it uses the Oxford comma, the omission of which, as we all know, once had catastrophic results for the plaintiff in a lawsuit... but if you hate the darn thing you can just remove it from the method as written.

        public static string GrammaticallyCorrectStringFrom(List<string> items, string prefaceTextWithNoSpaceAtEnd, string endingTextWithoutPeriod)
    {
        var returnString = string.Empty;
        if (items.Count != 0)
        {
            returnString = prefaceTextWithNoSpaceAtEnd + " ";
        }
        if (items.Count == 1)
        {
            returnString += string.Format("{0}", items[0]);
        }
        else if (items.Count == 2)
        {
            returnString += items[0] + " and " + items[1];
        }
        else if (items.Count > 2)
        {
            //remove the comma in the string.Format part if you're an anti-Oxford type
            returnString += string.Format("{0}, and {1}", string.Join(", ", items.Take(items.Count - 1)), items.Last());
        }
        if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(returnString) == false)
        {
            returnString += endingTextWithoutPeriod + ".";
        }           
        return returnString;
    }

There's probably a better, less-verbose way to do the same thing, but this is working for me, and it's hard to argue with results. Actually I guess it isn't, here, but still... Anyway, anyone with a fire to improve this is welcome to.

Create user-readable, display-friendly formatted string from List

2 Answers2