C# Read random line from URL

Question

Skip to TLDR version if you aren't up for an explanation of my logical processing.

I've been fiddling around with a program which does the following: On button click, reads random line from a locally stored text document, without the ability to repeat itself

however what I wan't it to do is to be able to read from a URL, not a locally stored solution.

So my following code is the current function and what I tried, and what it resulted with.

string[] readText = File.ReadAllLines(@"path\file.txt");
Random rnd = new Random();
textBox1.Text=(readText[rnd.Next(readText.Length)]);

Naturally all this does is read from a file stored in the path section, then creates a random generator and makes the textbox' output a random line from the entire document.

What I tried to do with the URL, and it partially worked..

WebClient webCon= new WebClient();
string webData = webCon.DownloadString("URL");
textBox1.Text = webData;

followed by the following to generate a random line of the document:

Random rnd = new Random();
textBox1.Text = ((webData[rnd.Next(webData.Length-1)]));

However this was invalid and I then had to convert char to string the following way, which resulted in a really funny and utterly useless textbox.

Random rnd = new Random();
textBox1.Text = char.ToString((webData[rnd.Next(webData.Length-1)]));

---

TL;DR version

I have a program that reads from a local file with the following method:

string[] readText = File.ReadAllLines(path)

and then generates a random line from said document to display in a textbox like so:

Random rndm = new Random();
            textBox1.Text=(readText[rndm.Next(readText.Length)]);

However what I want for it to be able to do, is read from a URL (online document). I tried completing this task with the webClient method but it resulted in needing to convert char to string on my textbox from a URL.

WebClient webCon= new WebClient();
string webData = webCon.DownloadString("URL");
textBox1.Text = webData;

I hope this question isn't close enough to a reposte as possible, I did ensure to check thoroughly first on relevant threads and couldn't really complete my task. Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

How about using the string.Split() method? It would boil down to something like this:

//\n denotes the newline caracter
var lines = webData.Split('\n');

you can now proceed with the lines array just as you did with the result you've obtained from the file.

I'd also recommend you use the WebClient like this:

using (var webCon = new WebClient()) 
{
    string webData = webCon.DownloadString("URL");
    //process webData
}

the using {} part makes sure your WebClient is correctly disposed (which frees up resources).

Some more explanation to your thought process:
strings are arrays composed of chars, so if you access an element inside, I'll be of type char:

string myVal = "hi mom";
char myChar = myVal[0];

The Random object should only be constructed once in your application, so make sure that if you generate a lot of random numbers in a short time you reuse the same Random object (or you might receive multiple times the same values)

Full example:

private static Random _random = new Random();
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    using (var webCon = new WebClient())
    {
        var webData = webCon.DownloadString("http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43253136/");
        var lines = webData.Split('\n');
        var myRandomLine = lines[_random.Next(0, lines.Length - 1)];
        MyTextBlock.Text = myRandomLine;
    }
}