Add separator to string at every N characters?

Question

I have a string which contains binary digits. How to separate string after each 8 digit?

Suppose the string is:

string x = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000";

I want to add a separator like ,(comma) after each 8 character.

output should be :

"11111111,00000000,11111111,00000000,11111111,00000000,"

Then I want to send it to a list<> last 8 char 1st then the previous 8 chars(excepting ,) and so on.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Regex.Replace(myString, ".{8}", "$0,");

If you want an array of eight-character strings, then the following is probably easier:

Regex.Split(myString, "(?<=^(.{8})+)");

which will split the string only at points where a multiple of eight characters precede it.

Answer 2

Try this:

var s = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000";
var list = Enumerable
    .Range(0, s.Length/8)
    .Select(i => s.Substring(i*8, 8));
var res = string.Join(",", list);

Answer 3

Ugly but less garbage:

private string InsertStrings(string s, int insertEvery, char insert)
{
    char[] ins = s.ToCharArray();
    int length = s.Length + (s.Length / insertEvery);
    if (ins.Length % insertEvery == 0)
    {
        length--;
    }
    var outs = new char[length];
    long di = 0;
    long si = 0;
    while (si < s.Length - insertEvery)
    {
        Array.Copy(ins, si, outs, di, insertEvery);
        si += insertEvery;
        di += insertEvery;
        outs[di] = insert;
        di ++;
    }
    Array.Copy(ins, si, outs, di, ins.Length - si);
    return new string(outs);
}

String overload:

private string InsertStrings(string s, int insertEvery, string insert)
{
    char[] ins = s.ToCharArray();
    char[] inserts = insert.ToCharArray();
    int insertLength = inserts.Length;
    int length = s.Length + (s.Length / insertEvery) * insert.Length;
    if (ins.Length % insertEvery == 0)
    {
        length -= insert.Length;
    }
    var outs = new char[length];
    long di = 0;
    long si = 0;
    while (si < s.Length - insertEvery)
    {
        Array.Copy(ins, si, outs, di, insertEvery);
        si += insertEvery;
        di += insertEvery;
        Array.Copy(inserts, 0, outs, di, insertLength);
        di += insertLength;
    }
    Array.Copy(ins, si, outs, di, ins.Length - si);
    return new string(outs);
}

Answer 4

There's another Regex approach:

var str = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000";
# for .NET 4
var res = String.Join(",",Regex.Matches(str, @"\d{8}").Cast<Match>());

# for .NET 3.5
var res = String.Join(",", Regex.Matches(str, @"\d{8}")
            .OfType<Match>()
            .Select(m => m.Value).ToArray());

Answer 5

...or old school:

public static List<string> splitter(string in, out string csv)
{
     if (in.length % 8 != 0) throw new ArgumentException("in");
     var lst = new List<string>(in/8);

     for (int i=0; i < in.length / 8; i++) lst.Add(in.Substring(i*8,8));

     csv = string.Join(",", lst); //This we want in input order (I believe)
     lst.Reverse(); //As we want list in reverse order (I believe)

     return lst;
}

Answer 6

Here my two little cents too. An implementation using StringBuilder:

        public static string AddChunkSeparator (string str, int chunk_len, char separator)
        {
            if (str == null || str.Length < chunk_len) {
                return str;
            }
            StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
            for (var index = 0; index < str.Length; index += chunk_len) {
                builder.Append(str, index, chunk_len);
                builder.Append(separator);
            }
            return builder.ToString();
        }

You can call it like this:

string data = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000";
string output = AddChunkSeparator(data, 8, ',');

Answer 7

If I understand your last requirement correctly (it's not clear to me if you need the intermediate comma-delimited string or not), you could do this:

var enumerable = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000".Batch(8).Reverse();

By utilizing morelinq.

Answer 8

I did it using Pattern & Matcher as following way:

fun addAnyCharacter(input: String, insertion: String, interval: Int): String {
  val pattern = Pattern.compile("(.{$interval})", Pattern.DOTALL)
  val matcher = pattern.matcher(input)
  return matcher.replaceAll("$1$insertion")
}

Where:

input indicates Input string. Check results section.

insertion indicates Insert string between those characters. For example comma (,), start(*), hash(#).

interval indicates at which interval you want to add insertion character.

input indicates Input string. Check results section. Check results section; here I've added insertion at every 4th character.

Results:

I/P: 1234XXXXXXXX5678 O/P: 1234 XXXX XXXX 5678

I/P: 1234567812345678 O/P: 1234 5678 1234 5678

I/P: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP O/P: ABCD EFGH IJKL MNOP

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

One way using LINQ:

string data = "111111110000000011111111000000001111111100000000";
const int separateOnLength = 8;

string separated = new string(
    data.Select((x,i) => i > 0 && i % separateOnLength == 0 ? new [] { ',', x } : new [] { x })
        .SelectMany(x => x)
        .ToArray()
    );

Answer 10

This is much faster without copying array (this version inserts space every 3 digits but you can adjust it to your needs)

public string GetString(double valueField)
{
    char[] ins = valueField.ToString().ToCharArray();
    int length = ins.Length + (ins.Length / 3);
    if (ins.Length % 3 == 0)
    {
        length--;
    }
    char[] outs = new char[length];

    int i = length - 1;
    int j = ins.Length - 1;
    int k = 0;
    do
    {
        if (k == 3)
        {
            outs[i--] = ' ';
            k = 0;
        }
        else
        {
            outs[i--] = ins[j--];
            k++;
        }           
    }
    while (i >= 0);

    return new string(outs);
}

Answer 11

A little late to the party, but here's a simplified LINQ expression to break an input string x into groups of n separated by another string sep:

string sep = ",";
int n = 8;
string result = String.Join(sep, x.InSetsOf(n).Select(g => new String(g.ToArray())));

A quick rundown of what's happening here:

• x is being treated as an IEnumberable<char>, which is where the InSetsOf extension method comes in.
• InSetsOf(n) groups characters into an IEnumerable of IEnumerable -- each entry in the outer grouping contains an inner group of n characters.
• Inside the Select method, each group of n characters is turned back into a string by using the String() constructor that takes an array of chars.
• The result of Select is now an IEnumerable<string>, which is passed into String.Join to interleave the sep string, just like any other example.

Answer 12

If you intend to create your own function to acheive this without using regex or pattern matching methods, you can create a simple function like this:

String formatString(String key, String seperator, int afterEvery){
        String formattedKey = "";
        for(int i=0; i<key.length(); i++){
            formattedKey += key.substring(i,i+1);
            if((i+1)%afterEvery==0)
                formattedKey += seperator;
        }
        if(formattedKey.endsWith("-"))
            formattedKey = formattedKey.substring(0,formattedKey.length()-1);
        return formattedKey;
    }

Calling the mothod like this

formatString("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST", "-", 4)

Would result in the return string as this

ABCD-EFGH-IJKL-MNOP-QRST

Answer 13

I am more than late with my answer but you can use this one:

    static string PutLineBreak(string str, int split)
    {
        for (int a = 1; a <= str.Length; a++)
        {
            if (a % split == 0)
                str = str.Insert(a, "\n");
        }

        return str;
    }

Answer 14

For every 1 character, you could do this one-liner:

string.Join(".", "1234".ToArray()) //result: 1.2.3.4