Split function delimiter 2

[rvBasic]

Does the split function allow for multicharacter delimiters?

According to [link ms-help://MS.VSCC.v90/MS.msdnexpress.v90.en/dv_vbalr/html/7e33b047-48fc-493b-bb8d-7d1ac3f90038.htm]Ms-help[/help]:

Delimiter
Optional. Any single character used to identify substring limits. If Delimiter is omitted, the space character (" ") is assumed to be the delimiter.

only a one character length string can be used.
But some examples shown on the same page seem to imply that a string of characters can be used:

Split("Alice and Bob", " AND ") results in {"Alice and Bob"}
Split("Alice and Bob", " AND ", ,CompareMethod.Text) results in {"Alice", "Bob"}

I'm particularly interested in using split(string,vbCrLf) to split an input file in its variuous line constituents, but I do get some strange results. So, I wonder if vbCrLf can be used as a delimiter?

(also sorry for the link: does not seem to work as expected)




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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. [attributed to Yogi Berra]

 

[RiverGuy]

I'm not sure why you are getting strange results, however have you considered using the System.IO.File.ReadAllLines() function when you are reading your input file to get the string array? This saves you from having to read then entire contents into a string and then parsing out then lines.

 

[rvBasic]

RiverGuy: No I didn't, I used StreamReader ReadToEnd

The problem seemed to be that the file ended with a line feed character Asc=10, and that the split function generated an extra blank line.

I'll try the ReadAllLines approach

BTW: what about the delimiter? one or more characters allowed?

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. [attributed to Yogi Berra]

 

[RiverGuy]

BTW: what about the delimiter? one or more characters allowed?

Yes, but like most of the functions in the .Net libraries, there are many options. Here's an example using more than one character.

        Dim s As String = "yesterday and today and tomorrow"
        For Each st As String In s.Split(New String() {"and"}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
            MessageBox.Show(st)
        Next

I'm passing in a single-element string array as the delimiter. If you look at the documentation for the Split function, you'll notice it accepts either a string array or a char array.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.string.split.aspx

You'll notice the following code doesn't work

        Dim s As String = "yesterday and today and tomorrow"
        For Each st As String In s.Split("and")
            MessageBox.Show(st)
        Next

However, if you supply a single character, it will work

        Dim s As String = "yesterday x today x tomorrow"
        For Each st As String In s.Split("x")
            MessageBox.Show(st)
        Next

 

[tsuji]

[1] Can use String.Split method with Environment.NewLine like this.
[tt]
Dim t as String()
t=s.Split(new String(){Environment.NewLine}, StringSplitOptions.None)
[/tt]
[2] Or use Regex.Split method again with Environment.NewLine.
[tt]
t=Regex.Split(s, Environment.NewLine)
[/tt]

 

[rvBasic]

For the moment this is very confusing to me. Maybe that, given some more experience, I'll find this one day obviuous

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In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. [attributed to Yogi Berra]