Substring problem

[prrm333]

I am returning a phone number from a database stored as all 10 digits.

I want to parse it out to look like:
(###) ###-####

I am having trouble understand how to accomplish this from the following returning from the database:

string strModified = dt["HPhone"].ToString();

 

[jmeckley]

//not sure if this works or not.
var number = 1234567890;
var as_string = number.ToString("000-000-0000");

or

var number = 1234567890.ToString();
var as_string = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", number.Left(3), number.SubString(4,3), number.Right(4));

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[prrm333]

The second method doesn't like the left and right function.
The first method throws errors about invalid arguements.
Not sure what to try next.

 

[jmeckley]

var as_string = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", number.SubString(0, 3), number.SubString(4,3), number.SubString(7));

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[jmeckley]

The second method doesn't like the left and right function.

how? exception messages and stack trace is full of useful information.


Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[prrm333]

Using the following:

var number = dt["LastName"].ToString();
var as_string = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", number.SubString(0, 3), number.SubString(4, 3), number.SubString(7));

I am getting the following error:

Error 1 'string' does not contain a definition for 'SubString' and no extension method 'SubString' accepting a first argument of type 'string' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

 

[prrm333]

The code I used should be as follows:

var number = dt["HPhone"].ToString();
var as_string = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", number.SubString(0, 3), number.SubString(4, 3), number.SubString(7));

 

[prrm333]

Thanks for the help as I solved the problem. I was using the following part incorrect:

string hPhone1 = hPhone1.Substring(0, 3);

I had started out with:

string hPhone1 = hPhone1.Substring(1, 3);

So the index was incorrect so I changed it to reflect the correct location within the string and I ended up with the following which works correctly:

string hPhone1 = string.Format(dt["HPhone"].ToString());
if (hPhone1 != "")
{
string hPhone1 = hPhone1.Substring(0, 3);
string hPhone2 = hPhone1.Substring(3, 3);
string hPhone3 = hPhone1.Substring(6, 4);
string hPhone2 = "(" + hPhone1 + ")" + " " + hPhone2 + "-" + hPhone3;
}

So I finally realized that the index is 0-9 and not 1-10.

 

[stevexff]

Formatting phone numbers is a fairly common requirement. Rather than having this inline in your code, it would be a good idea to refactor it out to a separate method. Then, when you discover later that not all of your phone numbers conform to a nice 10-digit format, you only have one place to go to fix it...

Steve

[small]"Every program can be reduced by one instruction, and every program has at least one bug. Therefore, any program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work." (Object:erlDesignPatterns)[/small]

 

[chiph]

At one time I started on writing a library to format phone numbers based on the CultureInfo object. It turned out to be much harder than I ever expected, and I gave up.

Be grateful that the North American Numbering Plan is such a good design.

Chip H.



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