How can I check if a string contains a character i

Question

Is there a function I can apply to a string that will return true of false if a string contains a character.

I have strings with one or more character options such as:

var abc = "s";
var def = "aB";
var ghi = "Sj";

What I would like to do for example is have a function that would return true or false if the above contained a lower or upper case "s".

if (def.Somefunction("s") == true) { }

Also in C# do I need to check if something is true like this or could I just remove the "== true" ?

Answer 1

The following should work:

var abc = "sAb";
bool exists = abc.IndexOf("ab", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) > -1;

Answer 2

You can use the IndexOf method, which has a suitable overload for string comparison types:

if (def.IndexOf("s", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0) ...

Also, you would not need the == true, since an if statement only expects an expression that evaluates to a bool.

Answer 3

Use the function String.Contains();

an example call,

abs.Contains("s"); // to look for lower case s

here is more from MSDN.

Answer 4

You can use the extension method .Contains() from the namespace System.Linq:

using System.Linq;

    ...

    if (abc.ToLower().Contains('s')) { }

And no, to check if a boolean expression is true, you don't need == true

Since the Contains method is an extension method, my solution appeared to be confusing to some. Here are two versions that don't require you to add using System.Linq;:

if (abc.ToLower().IndexOf('s') != -1) { }

// or:

if (abc.IndexOf("s", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) != -1) { }

Update

If you want to, you can write your own extensions method for easier reuse:

public static class MyStringExtensions
{
    public static bool ContainsAnyCaseInvariant(this string haystack, char needle)
    {
        return haystack.IndexOf(needle, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) != -1;
    }

    public static bool ContainsAnyCase(this string haystack, char needle)
    {
        return haystack.IndexOf(needle, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) != -1;
    }
}

Then you can call them like this:

if (def.ContainsAnyCaseInvariant('s')) { }
// or
if (def.ContainsAnyCase('s')) { }

In most cases when dealing with user data, you actually want to use CurrentCultureIgnoreCase (or the ContainsAnyCase extension method), because that way you let the system handle upper/lowercase issues, which depend on the language. When dealing with computational issues, like names of HTML tags and so on, you want to use the invariant culture.

For example: In Turkish, the uppercase letter I in lowercase is ı (without a dot), and not i (with a dot).

Answer 5

bool containsCharacter = test.IndexOf("s", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0;

Answer 6

here is an example what most of have done

using System;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Test("Dot Net Perls");
        Test("dot net perls");
    }

    static void Test(string input)
    {
        Console.Write("--- ");
        Console.Write(input);
        Console.WriteLine(" ---");
        //
        // See if the string contains 'Net'
        //
        bool contains = input.Contains("Net");
        //
        // Write the result
        //
        Console.Write("Contains 'Net': ");
        Console.WriteLine(contains);
        //
        // See if the string contains 'perls' lowercase
        //
        if (input.Contains("perls"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Contains 'perls'");
        }
        //
        // See if the string contains 'Dot'
        //
        if (!input.Contains("Dot"))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Doesn't Contain 'Dot'");
        }
    }
}