"String.Split()" Method In C#

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The String.Split() method returns an array of strings generated by splitting of original string separated by the delimiters passed. The delimiters can be a character an array of characters or an array of strings. The code examples in this article discuss various forms of String.Split() method and how to split strings using different delimiters in C# and .NET.

String Split using a character

The simplest form of string split is splitting a string into an array of substrings separated by a character such as a comma. Listing 1 is the code example that has a string of author names separated by a comma and a space. The authors.Split() method splits the string into an array of author names that are separated by a comma and space.


Console.WriteLine("Comma separated strings");
// String of authors
string authors = "Mahesh Chand, Henry He, Chris Love, Raj Beniwal, Praveen Kumar";
// Split authors separated by a comma followed by space
string[] authorsList = authors.Split(", ");
foreach (string author in authorsList)
Console.WriteLine(author);

Console.WriteLine("Comma separated strings");

// String of authors

string authors = "Mahesh Chand, Henry He, Chris Love, Raj Beniwal, Praveen Kumar";

// Split authors separated by a comma followed by space

string[] authorsList = authors.Split(", ");

foreach (string author in authorsList)

Console.WriteLine(author);

String Split using an array of characters

String Split method can also separate strings based on multiple characters in the same method. The Split method takes an argument of an array of characters and splits the string based on all the characters in the array.


Console.WriteLine("Split with multiple separators");
// Split with multiple separators
string multiCharString = "Mahesh..Chand, Henry\n He\t, Chris-Love, Raj..Beniwal, Praveen-Kumar";
// Split authors separated by a comma followed by space
string[] multiArray = multiCharString.Split(new Char [] {' ', ',', '.', '-', '\n', '\t' } );
foreach (string author in multiArray)
{
    if (author.Trim() != "")
        Console.WriteLine(author);
}

Console.WriteLine("Split with multiple separators");

// Split with multiple separators

string multiCharString = "Mahesh..Chand, Henry\n He\t, Chris-Love, Raj..Beniwal, Praveen-Kumar";

// Split authors separated by a comma followed by space

string[] multiArray = multiCharString.Split(new Char [] {' ', ',', '.', '-', '\n', '\t' } );

foreach (string author in multiArray)

{

if (author.Trim() != "")

Console.WriteLine(author);

}

String Split using an array of strings

The String Split method can also separate a string based on a substring or several strings in the string. The Split method takes an argument of an array of substrings or strings. Listing 3 is an example of splitting a string into an array of strings based on being separated by two substrings.


Console.WriteLine("Split String delimited by another string");

string stringString = "Mahesh Chand, Neel Chand Beniwal, Raj Beniwal, Dinesh Beniwal";
// String separator
string[] stringSeparators = new string[] { "Beniwal, ", "Chand, " };
string[] firstNames = stringString.Split(stringSeparators, StringSplitOptions.None );
foreach (string firstName in firstNames)
        Console.WriteLine(firstName);