Splitting CamelCase

Question

This is all asp.net c#.

I have an enum

public enum ControlSelectionType 
{
    NotApplicable = 1,
    SingleSelectRadioButtons = 2,
    SingleSelectDropDownList = 3,
    MultiSelectCheckBox = 4,
    MultiSelectListBox = 5
}

The numerical value of this is stored in my database. I display this value in a datagrid.

<asp:boundcolumn datafield="ControlSelectionTypeId" headertext="Control Type"></asp:boundcolumn>

The ID means nothing to a user so I have changed the boundcolumn to a template column with the following.

<asp:TemplateColumn>
    <ItemTemplate>
        <%# Enum.Parse(typeof(ControlSelectionType), DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "ControlSelectionTypeId").ToString()).ToString()%>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateColumn>

This is a lot better... However, it would be great if there was a simple function I can put around the Enum to split it by Camel case so that the words wrap nicely in the datagrid.

Note: I am fully aware that there are better ways of doing all this. This screen is purely used internally and I just want a quick hack in place to display it a little better.

Answer 1

The easiest way in my opinion to do this would be to use a RegEx to split the string into parts. This article, shows you everything that is needed.

You can just make a quick function in your codebehind that does the parsing and you will be set!

Answer 2

Indeed a regex/replace is the way to go as described in the other answer, however this might also be of use to you if you wanted to go a different direction

    using System.ComponentModel;
    using System.Reflection;

...

    public static string GetDescription(System.Enum value)
    {
        FieldInfo fi = value.GetType().GetField(value.ToString());
        DescriptionAttribute[] attributes = (DescriptionAttribute[])fi.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
        if (attributes.Length > 0)
            return attributes[0].Description;
        else
            return value.ToString();
    }

this will allow you define your Enums as

public enum ControlSelectionType 
{
    [Description("Not Applicable")]
    NotApplicable = 1,
    [Description("Single Select Radio Buttons")]
    SingleSelectRadioButtons = 2,
    [Description("Completely Different Display Text")]
    SingleSelectDropDownList = 3,
}

Taken from

http://www.codeguru.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-412868.html

Answer 3

Using LINQ:

var chars = ControlSelectionType.NotApplicable.ToString().SelectMany((x, i) => i > 0 && char.IsUpper(x) ? new char[] { ' ', x } : new char[] { x });

Console.WriteLine(new string(chars.ToArray()));

Answer 4

If C# 3.0 is an option you can use the following one-liner to do the job:

Regex.Matches(YOUR_ENUM_VALUE_NAME, "[A-Z][a-z]+").OfType<Match>().Select(match => match.Value).Aggregate((acc, b) => acc + " " + b).TrimStart(' ');