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?

You should edit your question to remove null and only state empty strings. string.Split doesn't give null strings, just empty ones. — Samuel
– Samuel, Commented Mar 11, 2009 at 19:06

Mkkt Bkkt · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-11 18:49:14Z

112

Try this:

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

edited Mar 11, 2009 at 18:49

answered Mar 11, 2009 at 18:24

Mkkt Bkkt

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3 Comments

Guffa Over a year ago

That does not compile. You need to use new char[]{';'} as the first parameter.

denver Over a year ago

One thing to note is that this will not remove strings consisting of only whitespace.

PSR Over a year ago

Not works as expected. ex: var a = "1" + "," + "" + "," + "2" + "," + " " + "," + "3" + "," + " " + "," + null + ","+"4"; . a.Split(new char[] { ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries); . Console.WriteLine(a.ToString()); will give result of 1,,2, ,3, ,,4

sgriffinusa · Accepted Answer · 2009-03-11 18:49:19Z

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));

edited Mar 11, 2009 at 18:49

answered Mar 11, 2009 at 18:27

sgriffinusa

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3 Comments

Mkkt Bkkt Over a year ago

You could possibly insert a .Select(s => s.Trim()) between Split and Where so that whitespace-only strings will get removed as well.

Guffa Over a year ago

Note: The Split method never produces null values.

PSR Over a year ago

@TamasCzinege you can use string.IsNullOrWhiteSpaces instead of trim()

nhahtdh · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-01 11:39:12Z

2

public static string[] nullLessArray(string[] src)
{
    Array.Sort(src);
    Array.Reverse(src);
    int index = Array.IndexOf(src, null);

    string[] outputArray = new string[index];

    for (int counter = 0; counter < index; counter++)
    {
       outputArray[counter] = src[counter];
    }

    return outputArray;
}

edited Jul 1, 2012 at 11:39

nhahtdh

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answered Jul 1, 2012 at 7:32

Sameer Shaikh

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Comments

Blessed Geek · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-22 07:26:20Z

0

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, "([;][;]+)", ";");

answered Nov 22, 2009 at 7:26

Blessed Geek

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bjoiuzt · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-08 09:27:40Z

0

                words = poly[a].Split(charseparators, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

                foreach (string word in words)
                    {   
                        richTextBox1.Text += (d + 1)+ "  " + word.Trim(',')+ "\r\n";
                        d++;
                    }

charseparators is a space

answered Jul 8, 2016 at 9:27

bjoiuzt

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