trim all strings in an array

Question

i have a string that comes in like:

 string email = "[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]";

i want to split it into an array of strings

if i do this:

 string[] emails = email.Split(',');

i get spaces in front of each email address (after the first one)

 emails[0] = "[email protected]"
 emails[1] = " [email protected]"
 emails[2] = " [email protected]"

what is the best way to get this (either a better way to parse or a way to trim all strings in an array)?

 emails[0] = "[email protected]"
 emails[1] = "[email protected]"
 emails[2] = "[email protected]"

Answer 1

You can use Trim():

string email = "[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]";
string[] emails = email.Split(',');
emails = (from e in emails
          select e.Trim()).ToArray();

Answer 2

Use String.Trim in a foreach loop, or if you are using .NET 3.5+ a LINQ statement.

Answer 3

Alternatively, you can split using a regular expression of the form:

\s*,\s*

i.e.

string[] emails = Regex.Split(email, @"\s*,\s*");

It will consume the surrounding spaces directly.

Regular expressions are usually a performance hit, but the example you gave indicates that this is something you plan to do once in your code for a short array.

Answer 4

You could also replace all occurrences of spaces, and so avoid the foreach loop:

string email = "[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]";    
string[] emails = email.Replace(' ', '').Split(',');

Answer 5

Use Regex.Split to avoid trimming

var emails = Regex.Split(email, @",\s*");

Answer 6

Either one of the following would work. I'd recommend the first since it more accurately expresses the joining string.

string[] emails = email.Split(new string[] { ", " }, StringSplitOptions.None);
string[] emails = email.Split(new char[] { ' ', ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Answer 7

emails.Split(',').Select(email => email.Trim()).ToArray()