C# StreamReader, trouble splitting at new line

Question

I have a global string variable - "word".

    string word = "";
    List<Label> labels = new List<Label>();
    int amount = 0;

That word is then defined/assigned in the following two functions by parsing a text document (new line delimited)

    void MakeLabels()
    {
        word = GetRandomWord();
        char[] chars = word.ToCharArray();
        ...
    }


    string GetRandomWord()
    {

        System.IO.StreamReader myFile = new System.IO.StreamReader(...);
        string myString = myFile.ReadToEnd();
        string[] words = myString.Split('\n');
        Random ran = new Random();
        return words[ran.Next(0, words.Length - 1)];
    }

And, finally, an event that validates the contents of a textbox against the "word" variable.

    private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (textBox2.Text == word)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(...);
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show(...);
            textBox2.Text = "";
            textBox1.Focus();
            Reset();
        }

The problem I'm having is that even when textBox2 is equivalent to "word", I'm receiving the MessageBox related to the else statement. I think it has to do with the "word" variable carrying in the '\n'; meaning that textBox2.Text = apple and word = apple\n, thus the two variables not being equivalent. Any suggestions?

You should wrap your file reading code in a `using (....)`. Currently your `reader` is not being disposed at all. — Arran, Nov 12 '13 at 16:55
Can you debug your code, and show us the value of `word` and `textBox2.Text`? — ProgramFOX, Nov 12 '13 at 16:56
Using `Environment.NewLine` instead of a hardcoded character or sequence of characters for a new line is a good practice. — S_F, Nov 12 '13 at 16:58
the problem might be u are spliting on '\n' and you should use Environment.NewLine or if you want to hard-code it \r\n.Now since you split on '\n' the '\r' remains.and probably only the last line is fine(without the '\r').If you set a breakpoint in the words array you should see that all lines but not the last will have '\r' at the end. — terrybozzio, Nov 12 '13 at 17:12

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 16:59

0

If you're sure that your problem is the line break at the end of the string, you should take a look at the String.Trim() method.

answered Nov 12 '13 at 16:59

Dan

209
2
6

trope · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-12T17:36:01.777

1) Newlines in windows environments are \r\n, not \n. Splitting on \n is insufficient.
2) Contrary to suggestions, you cannot simply call someString.Split(Environment.NewLine).

There is no overload that simply takes a string. You could call someString.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray()) but will have additional concerns you need to consider. Say we have an input, string test = "test1\r\ntest2". If you call test.Split('\n'), the resulting array will have two elements: array[0] will be "test1\r" and array[1] will be "test2"...

But if you call test.Split(Environment.NewLine.ToCharArray()) then you'll get an array with three elements: array[0] will be "test1", array[1] will be "", and array[2] will be "test2"... Edited to add: You can combat that by calling test.Split(new string[] { Environment.NewLine }, StringSplitOptions.None).

3) As one person suggested, calling string.Trim() would remove \r. Thus, return words[ran.Next(0, words.Length - 1)] could be changed to return words[ran.Next(0, words.Length - 1)].Trim() to eliminate the \r without making changes to your current split code.

there is an overload in fact some overloads which accept a char[] or string[] so in the split method´s first parameter -new string[] {Environment.NewLine }-. — terrybozzio, Nov 12 '13 at 17:35
Ha, just made an edit to mention that. I'd initially forgotten about it. — trope, Nov 12 '13 at 17:36
A culmination of most of the submissions helped me on this, so thank you to all... The Split('\n') was taking care of it's part, but I was forgetting about the remaining '\r'. I had take care of that in the end submission. if (textBox2.Text == word.Trim('\r')) { MessageBox.Show(...); } — jbeckom, Nov 12 '13 at 17:51

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

0

Use something like the following

string[] parseStr = myTest.Split(new string[]{Environment.NewLine},StringSplitOptions.None);

CRLF parsing blues in C#

edited May 23 '17 at 12:05

Community

1
1

answered Nov 12 '13 at 17:32

user1666620

4,800
18
27

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 18:03

 string GetRandomWord()
  {

    string[] linse=  System .IO.File .ReadAllLines (......) ;
      string mlines = "";
        foreach (string line in linse)
          {
             if (line.Trim() != "")
                if(mlines=="")
                    mlines = line;
                else 
                mlines = mlines +"\n"+ line;
          }
        string[] words = mlines. Split('\n');

 Random ran = new Random();
    return words[ran.Next(0, words.Length - 1)];
}

C# StreamReader, trouble splitting at new line

4 Answers4