Why is there no Char.Empty like String.Empty?

Question

Is there a reason for this? I am asking this because if you needed to use lots of empty char, then you get into the same situation as you would when you use lots of empty strings.

EDIT: Reason for this usage was this:

myString.Replace ('c', '')

So remove all instances of 'c's from myString.

Answer 1

There's no such thing as an empty char. The closest you can get is '\0', the Unicode "null" character. Given that you can embed that within string literals or express it on its own very easily, why would you want a separate field for it? Equally, the "it's easy to confuse "" and " " arguments don't apply for '\0'.

If you could give an example of where you'd want to use it and why you think it would be better, that might help...

Answer 2

There's no such thing as an empty character. It always contains something. Even '\0' is a character.

Answer 3

A char, unlike a string, is a discrete thing with a fixed size. A string is really a container of chars.

So, Char.Empty doesn't really make sense in that context. If you have a char, it's not empty.

Answer 4

Use Char.MinValue which works the same as '\0'. But be careful it is not the same as Empty.String.

Answer 5

the same reason there isn't an int.Empty. Containers can be empty. Scalar values cannot be. If you mean 0 (which is not empty), then use '\0'. If you mean null, then use null :)

Answer 6

A char is a value type, so its value cannot be null. (Unless it is wrapped in a Nullable container).

Since it can't be null, in contains some numeric code and each code is mapped to some character.

Answer 7

You could use nullable chars.

char? c

Answer 8

Your sample

 myString.Replace ('c', '\0')

Won't remove any characters. It will just replace them with '\0' (EOS), with varying consequences.
Just use the string overload:

 myString.Replace ("c", "")
 myString.Replace ("c", string.Empty)  //for aesthetic reasons only

Answer 9

If you don't need the entire string, you can take advantage of the delayed execution:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<char> RemoveChar(this IEnumerable<char> originalString, char removingChar)
    {
        return originalString.Where(@char => @char != removingChar);
    }
}

You can even combine multiple characters...

string veryLongText = "abcdefghijk...";

IEnumerable<char> firstFiveCharsWithoutCsAndDs = veryLongText
            .RemoveChar('c')
            .RemoveChar('d')
            .Take(5);

... and only the first 7 characters will be evaluated :)

EDIT: or, even better:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static IEnumerable<char> RemoveChars(this IEnumerable<char> originalString,
        params char[] removingChars)
    {
        return originalString.Except(removingChars);
    }
}

and its usage:

        var veryLongText = "abcdefghijk...";
        IEnumerable<char> firstFiveCharsWithoutCsAndDs = veryLongText
            .RemoveChars('c', 'd')
            .Take(5)
            .ToArray(); //to prevent multiple execution of "RemoveChars"

Answer 10

How about BOM, the magical character Microsoft adds to start of files (at least XML)?