You can use a StringReader to read a line at a time:
using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(input))
{
string line = string.Empty;
do
{
line = reader.ReadLine();
if (line != null)
{
// do something with the line
}
} while (line != null);
}
string textReaderText = "TextReader is the abstract base " +
"class of StreamReader and StringReader, which read " +
"characters from streams and strings, respectively.\n\n" +
"Create an instance of TextReader to open a text file " +
"for reading a specified range of characters, or to " +
"create a reader based on an existing stream.\n\n" +
"You can also use an instance of TextReader to read " +
"text from a custom backing store using the same " +
"APIs you would use for a string or a stream.\n\n";
Console.WriteLine("Original text:\n\n{0}", textReaderText);
// From textReaderText, create a continuous paragraph
// with two spaces between each sentence.
string aLine, aParagraph = null;
StringReader strReader = new StringReader(textReaderText);
while(true)
{
aLine = strReader.ReadLine();
if(aLine != null)
{
aParagraph = aParagraph + aLine + " ";
}
else
{
aParagraph = aParagraph + "\n";
break;
}
}
Console.WriteLine("Modified text:\n\n{0}", aParagraph);
I suggest using a combination of StringReader and my LineReader class, which is part of MiscUtil but also available in this StackOverflow answer - you can easily copy just that class into your own utility project. You'd use it like this:
string text = @"First line
second line
third line";
foreach (string line in new LineReader(() => new StringReader(text)))
{
Console.WriteLine(line);
}
Looping over all the lines in a body of string data (whether that's a file or whatever) is so common that it shouldn't require the calling code to be testing for null etc :) Having said that, if you do want to do a manual loop, this is the form that I typically prefer over Fredrik's:
using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(input))
{
string line;
while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
// Do something with the line
}
}
This way you only have to test for nullity once, and you don't have to think about a do/while loop either (which for some reason always takes me more effort to read than a straight while loop).
I know this has been answered, but I'd like to add my own answer:
using (var reader = new StringReader(multiLineString))
{
for (string line = reader.ReadLine(); line != null; line = reader.ReadLine())
{
// Do something with the line
}
}
Sometimes I think we can overcomplicate the solution just to avoid repeating one line of code. This is the reason I landed on this question in the first place.
After thinking about it for a bit I came to the conclusion that the simplest solution is to repeat the ReadLine before and inside the loop.
using (var stringReader = new StringReader(input))
{
var line = await stringReader.ReadLineAsync();
while (line != null)
{
// do something
line = await stringReader.ReadLineAsync();
}
}
I realize this might be considered to not follow the DRY principle, but I think it's worth considering given the simplicity.