In C# VS2008 how to replace (string)aaa to aaa.ToString()

Question

I just converted a VB.net solution into C# solution. But lots of variables have been coverted like:

string var1 = (string)1;
string var2 = (string)intVar; //intVar is a int value

I just want to convert all (string)XXXX to XXXX.ToString() by using some Regular expressions or some other replace methods.

Can someome help me out?

Answer 1

Hi

I am not too familiar with regex but I offer a warning instead. You might not want to replace all (string)xxx to xxx.toString() because (as you know I am sure) (string) is casting and a ToString() is a method call. You can only cast something as string if the object is a descendant of string. You can call ToString() if the implementor of the class overrode the ToString() method. If not then you are just going to get the default implementation.

Answer 2

The text editor Notepad++ has regular expression support. You may try something like: Replace [(]string[)][ ]*([^ .\t;/]*) with \1.ToString().

This turns this:

(string) xyz;
(string) abc.123;
(string)alf;
(string)argu ment

into this:

xyz.ToString();
abc.ToString().123;
alf.ToString();
argu.ToString() ment

This however, does not handle the case of (string) aFunction( obj1, obj2 ).

You may want to handle these by yourself first, or build another regexp.

Answer 3

Well, the reason that you get the extra code in the conversion, is that you don't have Option Strict On in the VB code. If you had, you wouldn't be able to do those implicit conversions in the first place.

So, the VB code should look like this, and the C# code would then look right in the conversion:

var1 As String = "1"

var2 As String = intVar.ToString

To fix this after the conversion is done is quite beyond what a regular expression is capable of. Sure, you could make an expression that would convert all (string)x to x.ToString(), but that would probably cause more problems that it fixed...

Answer 4

find: \(string\){:a*}
replace: \1.ToString()

Back up your solution first!

Answer 5

I am not sure if you really want to do this as a mass conversion. As in all reality in your example, you should end up with the following.

string var1 = "1";

and

string var2 = intVar.ToString();

There is no need for your first example to be doing a cast, when it can be a string from the beginning.

Answer 6

Hi! Suggest you to use this one

Find: \(string\){(.*)}{:Po}

Replace: \1.ToString()\2

Good luck!