Split a string by another string in C#

Question

I've been using the Split() method to split strings, but this only appears to work if you are splitting a string by a character. Is there a way to split a string, with another string being the split by parameter?

I've tried converting the splitter into a character array, with no luck.

In other words, I'd like to split the string:

THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX

by xx, and return an array with values:

THE, QUICK, BROWN, FOX

Answer 1

In order to split by a string you'll have to use the string array overload.

string data = "THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX";

return data.Split(new string[] { "xx" }, StringSplitOptions.None);

Answer 2

There is an overload of Split that takes strings.

"THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX".Split(new [] { "xx" }, StringSplitOptions.None);

You can use either of these StringSplitOptions

• None - The return value includes array elements that contain an empty string
• RemoveEmptyEntries - The return value does not include array elements that contain an empty string

So if the string is "THExxQUICKxxxxBROWNxxFOX", StringSplitOptions.None will return an empty entry in the array for the "xxxx" part while StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries will not.

Answer 3

Regex.Split(string, "xx")

is the way I do it usually.

---

Of course you'll need:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

or :

System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Split(string, "xx")

but then again I need that library all the time.

Answer 4

There's an overload of String.Split for this:

"THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX".Split(new [] {"xx"}, StringSplitOptions.None);

Answer 5

I generally like to use my own extension for that:

string data = "THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX";
var dataspt = data.Split("xx");
//>THE  QUICK  BROWN  FOX 


//the extension class must be declared as static
public static class StringExtension
{   
    public static string[] Split(this string str, string splitter)
    {
        return str.Split(new[] { splitter }, StringSplitOptions.None);
    }
}

This will however lead to an Exception, if Microsoft decides to include this method-overload in later versions. It is also the likely reason why Microsoft has not included this method in the meantime: At least one company I worked for, used such an extension in all their C# projects.

It may also be possible to conditionally define the method at runtime if it doesn't exist.

Answer 6

As of .NET Core 2.0, there is an override that takes a string.

So now you can do "THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX".Split("xx").

See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.split?view=netcore-2.0#System_String_Split_System_String_System_StringSplitOptions_

Answer 7

The previous answers are all correct. I go one step further and make C# work for me by defining an extension method on String:

public static class Extensions
{
    public static string[] Split(this string toSplit, string splitOn) {
        return toSplit.Split(new string[] { splitOn }, StringSplitOptions.None);
    }
}

That way I can call it on any string in the simple way I naively expected the first time I tried to accomplish this:

"a big long string with stuff to split on".Split("g str");

Answer 8

string data = "THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX";

return data.Replace("xx","|").Split('|');

Just choose the replace character carefully (choose one that isn't likely to be present in the string already)!

Answer 9

Create this function first.

string[] xSplit(string str, string sep) {
    return str.Split(new [] {sep}, StringSplitOptions.None);
}

Then use it like this.

xSplit("THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX", "xx");

Answer 10

This is also easy:

string data = "THExxQUICKxxBROWNxxFOX";
string[] arr = data.Split("xx".ToCharArray(), StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);