C#: String Essential Training

Learn how to work with the string class in the .NET framework. Review how to manipulate string content, parse strings, format numeric and date types, and more.

Introduction

• Working with text in .NET
• How to access and clone the GitHub code
• Open the cloned solution in Visual Studio
• Work with Git branches

1. Overview

• .NET, text, and strings
• What is a string?
• Declaring a string variable
• Initialize a string variable
• Immutable: What does that mean in .NET strings?

2. The Char Type

• The char, the building block of a strong
• Initialize a string from a char array
• Get a char from a string
• Use char methods to analyze Unicode data

3. String Basics

• Three ways to work with string literals
• Use escape sequences to add control chars to a string
• Use verbatim string literals

4. Composing Strings

• Combine strings with String.Concat
• Combine strings with the concatenation operator
• Composite formatting with placeholders
• Use C# interpolation for simpler composite formatting
• Use StringBuilder to improve performance
• Use Perf Monitor to examine performance improvements

5. String Methods

• Splitting strings into an array
• Use LINQ to query string array
• Joining an array into a string
• Trim unwanted content from a string
• Work with a subset of a string
• Verify that string contains search characters
• Replace and remove content
• Challenge: Better substring
• Solution: Better substring

6. How Custom Types Format and Parse Strings

• Custom types and string conversions
• How custom types are converted to string with toString()
• How custom types override toString()
• IFormattable and the toString() call order
• Custom formats with IFormattable
• Working with culture-specific formats
• Challenge: Split a string into two numbers
• Solution: Convert a string to the type with parse()
• Add custom filters to parse()
• Prevent exceptions with a tryParse() implementation

7. Formatting

• Formatting data with the built-in numeric formats
• Formatting data with custom formatters
• Apply conditional string formats
• Formatting dates
• Challenge: Ordinal formatting
• Solution: Ordinal formatting

8. Convert and Parse

• The parse() method and the Convert class
• Use tryParse() for better error handing

9. Culture Information

• Why is culture important for strings?
• The CultureInfo class
• Use culture when formatting strings
• Invariant culture and strings

10. Compare and Sort

• How string comparison works in .NET
• Test for equality with String.Equals
• Compare strings with String.Compare
• Sort strings with Array.Sort and LINQ

Conclusion

• Next steps