Looking for C# equivalent of scanf

Question

I used to code in C language in the past and I found the scanf function very usefull. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent in C#.

I am using using it to parse semi-structured text files.

I found an interresting example of scanf implementation here. Unfortunately, it looks old and uncomplete.

Do anyone knows a scanf C# implementation ? Or at least something that would work as a reversed string.Format ?

Answer 1

Since the files are "semi-structured" can't you use a combination of ReadLine and Try.Parse() or Regex to parse your data?

Answer 2

You can use scanf directly from C runtime libraries, but this can be difficult if you need to run it with different parameters count. I recommend you to regular expressions for you task or describe that task here, maybe there is another ways.

Answer 3

You could use System.IO.FileStream, and System.IO.StreamReader, and then parse from there.

Answer 4

I think you want the C# library functions either Parse or Convert.

// here's an example of getting the hex value from a command line 
// program.exe 0x00080000

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    int value = Convert.ToInt32(args[1].Substring(2), 16);
    Console.Out.WriteLine("Value is: " + value.ToString());
}

Answer 5

There is good reason why a scanf like function is missing from c#. It's very prone to error, and not flexible. Using Regex is much more flexible and powerful.

Another benefit is that it's easier to reuse throughout your code if you need to parse the same thing in different parts of the code.