Getting rid of null/empty string values in a C# array

Question

I have a program where an array gets its data using string.Split(char[] delimiter). (using ';' as delimiter.)

Some of the values, though, are null. I.e. the string has parts where there is no data so it does something like this:

1 ;2 ; ; 3;

This leads to my array having null values.

How do I get rid of them?

Answer 1

Try this:

yourString.Split(new string[] {";"}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Answer 2

You could use the Where linq extension method to only return the non-null or empty values.

string someString = "1;2;;3;";

IEnumerable<string> myResults = someString.Split(';').Where<string>(s => !string.IsNullOrEmpty(s));

Answer 3

You should replace multiple adjacent semicolons with one semicolon before splitting the data.

This would replace two semicolons with one semicolon:

datastr = datastr.replace(";;",";");

But, if you have more than two semicolons together, regex would be better.

datastr = Regex.Replace(datastr, "([;][;]+)", ";");