.net - Replace multiple characters in a C# string

Question

Is there a better way to replace strings?

I am surprised that Replace does not take in a character array or string array. I guess that I could write my own extension but I was curious if there is a better built in way to do the following? Notice the last Replace is a string not a character.

myString.Replace(';', '
').Replace(',', '
').Replace('
', '
').Replace('', '
').Replace(' ', '
').Replace("

", "
");

Answer 1

You can use a replace regular expression.

s/[;,
 ]|[
]{2}/
/g

• s/ at the beginning means a search
• The characters between [ and ] are the characters to search for (in any order)
• The second / delimits the search-for text and the replace text

In English, this reads:

"Search for ; or , or or or (space) or exactly two sequential and replace it with "

In C#, you could do the following: (after importing System.Text.RegularExpressions)

Regex pattern = new Regex("[;,
 ]|[
]{2}");
pattern.Replace(myString, "
");