Help me delete the last three chars of any string please!

Question

Test string:

the%20matrix%20

How can I delete the last three chars? Using this code gives me an out of index exception:

y = y.Substring(y.Length - 4, y.Length - 1);

Answer 1

You need to check that the string is at least 3 characters long first.

if (y.Length > 2)
{
}

As others have said the version of Substring you want parameters are startIndex and length.

Though what do you want to do with 1 or 2 character strings?

Answer 2

You want y.Substring(0, y.Length-4)

Answer 3

If you want to delete the last three characters, you need the first parameter of your Substring method to be zero.

Answer 4

As dalovega said, you need the first parameter of Substring to be 0 and the second Length - 3. As an alternative:

if(y.Length >= 3)
{
    y = y.Remove(y.Length - 3)
}

Answer 5

Seems this isn't your REAL problem; if you want to remove that "%20", you should use:

string test = "the%20matrix%20";
string clean = HttpUtility.UrlDecode(test);

if (clean.Length > 2) // if you still want to strip last chars...
    clean = clean.Substring(0, clean.Length - 3);