Adding 'space' in C# textbox

Question

1. Hi guys, so I need to add a 'space' between each character in my displayed text box.

2. I am giving the user a masked word like this He__o for him to guess and I want to convert this to H e _ _ o

3. I am using the following code to randomly replace characters with '_'

       char[] partialWord = word.ToCharArray();
   
       int numberOfCharsToHide = word.Length / 2;          //divide word length by 2 to get chars to hide 
       Random randomNumberGenerator = new Random();        //generate rand number
       HashSet<int> maskedIndices = new HashSet<int>();    //This is to make sure that I select unique indices to hide. Hashset helps in achieving this
       for (int i = 0; i < numberOfCharsToHide; i++)       //counter until it reaches words to hide
       {
           int rIndex = randomNumberGenerator.Next(0, word.Length);       //init rindex
           while (!maskedIndices.Add(rIndex))
           {
               rIndex = randomNumberGenerator.Next(0, word.Length); //This is to make sure that I select unique indices to hide. Hashset helps in achieving this
           }
           partialWord[rIndex] = '_';                      //replace with _
       }
       return new string(partialWord);   
   

4. I have tried : partialWord[rIndex] = '_ ';however this brings the error "Too many characters in literal"

5. I have tried : partialWord[rIndex] = "_ "; however this returns the error " Cannot convert type string to char.

Any idea how I can proceed to achieve a space between each character?

Thanks

Answer 1

Since the resulting string is longer than the original string, you can't use only one char array because its length is constant.

Here's a solution with StringBuilder:

var builder = new StringBuilder(word);
for (int i = 0 ; i < word.Length ; i++) {
    builder.Insert(i * 2, " ");
}
return builder.ToString().TrimStart(' '); // TrimStart is called here to remove the leading whitespace. If you want to keep it, delete the call.

Answer 2

The following code should do as you ask. I think the code is pretty self explanatory., but feel free to ask if anything is unclear as to the why or how of the code.

// char[] partialWord  is used from question code
char[] result = new char[(partialWord.Length * 2) - 1];
for(int i = 0; i < result.Length; i++)
{
    result[i] = i % 2 == 0 ? partialWord[i / 2] : ' ';
}
return new string(result);