Get string between two strings in a string

Question

I have a string like:

"super exemple of string key : text I want to keep - end of my string"

I want to just keep the string which is between "key : " and " - ". How can I do that? Must I use a Regex or can I do it in another way?

Answer 1

Since the : and the - are unique you could use:

string input;
string output;
input = "super example of string key : text I want to keep - end of my string";
output = input.Split(new char[] { ':', '-' })[1];

Answer 2

I think this works:

   static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        String text = "One=1,Two=2,ThreeFour=34";

        Console.WriteLine(betweenStrings(text, "One=", ",")); // 1
        Console.WriteLine(betweenStrings(text, "Two=", ",")); // 2
        Console.WriteLine(betweenStrings(text, "ThreeFour=", "")); // 34

        Console.ReadKey();

    }

    public static String betweenStrings(String text, String start, String end)
    {
        int p1 = text.IndexOf(start) + start.Length;
        int p2 = text.IndexOf(end, p1);

        if (end == "") return (text.Substring(p1));
        else return text.Substring(p1, p2 - p1);                      
    }

Answer 3

Depending on how robust/flexible you want your implementation to be, this can actually be a bit tricky. Here's the implementation I use:

public static class StringExtensions {
    /// <summary>
    /// takes a substring between two anchor strings (or the end of the string if that anchor is null)
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="this">a string</param>
    /// <param name="from">an optional string to search after</param>
    /// <param name="until">an optional string to search before</param>
    /// <param name="comparison">an optional comparison for the search</param>
    /// <returns>a substring based on the search</returns>
    public static string Substring(this string @this, string from = null, string until = null, StringComparison comparison = StringComparison.InvariantCulture)
    {
        var fromLength = (from ?? string.Empty).Length;
        var startIndex = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(from) 
            ? @this.IndexOf(from, comparison) + fromLength
            : 0;

        if (startIndex < fromLength) { throw new ArgumentException("from: Failed to find an instance of the first anchor"); }

            var endIndex = !string.IsNullOrEmpty(until) 
            ? @this.IndexOf(until, startIndex, comparison) 
            : @this.Length;

        if (endIndex < 0) { throw new ArgumentException("until: Failed to find an instance of the last anchor"); }

        var subString = @this.Substring(startIndex, endIndex - startIndex);
        return subString;
    }
}

// usage:
var between = "a - to keep x more stuff".Substring(from: "-", until: "x");
// returns " to keep "

Answer 4

string input = "super exemple of string key : text I want to keep - end of my string";
var match = Regex.Match(input, @"key : (.+?)-").Groups[1].Value;

or with just string operations

var start = input.IndexOf("key : ") + 6;
var match2 = input.Substring(start, input.IndexOf("-") - start);