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Trimming and Removing Characters from Strings in .NET |
Learn to trim blank spaces from the beginning or end of a string, or remove any number of spaces or characters from a specified position in the string in .NET. |
07/22/2022 |
devdivchpfy22 |
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ab248dab-70d4-4413-81c6-542d153fd195 |
If you're parsing a sentence into individual words, you might end up with words that have blank spaces (also called white spaces) on either end of the word. In this situation, you can use one of the trim methods in the System.String class to remove any number of spaces or other characters from a specified position in the string. The following table describes the available trim methods:
| Method name | Use |
|---|---|
| xref:System.String.Trim%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType | Removes white spaces or characters specified in an array of characters from the beginning and end of a string. |
| xref:System.String.TrimEnd%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType | Removes characters specified in an array of characters from the end of a string. |
| xref:System.String.TrimStart%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType | Removes characters specified in an array of characters from the beginning of a string. |
| xref:System.String.Remove%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType | Removes a specified number of characters from a specified index position in a string. |
You can easily remove white spaces from both ends of a string by using the xref:System.String.Trim%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType method, as shown in the following example:
[!code-cppConceptual.String.BasicOps#17] [!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#17] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#17]
You can also remove characters that you specify in a character array from the beginning and end of a string. The following example removes white-space characters, periods, and asterisks:
[!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#22] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#22]
The String.TrimEnd method removes characters from the end of a string, creating a new string object. An array of characters is passed to this method to specify the characters to be removed. The order of the elements in the character array doesn't affect the trim operation. The trim stops when a character not specified in the array is found.
The following example removes the last letters of a string using the TrimEnd method. In this example, the position of the 'r' character and the 'W' character are reversed to illustrate that the order of characters in the array doesn't matter. Notice that this code removes the last word of MyString plus part of the first.
[!code-cppConceptual.String.BasicOps#18] [!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#18] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#18]
This code displays He to the console.
The following example removes the last word of a string using the TrimEnd method. In this code, a comma follows the word Hello and because the comma isn't specified in the array of characters to trim, the trim ends at the comma.
[!code-cppConceptual.String.BasicOps#19] [!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#19] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#19]
This code displays Hello, to the console.
The String.TrimStart method is similar to the String.TrimEnd method except that it creates a new string by removing characters from the beginning of an existing string object. An array of characters is passed to the TrimStart method to specify the characters to be removed. As with the TrimEnd method, the order of the elements in the character array doesn't affect the trim operation. The trim stops when a character not specified in the array is found.
The following example removes the first word of a string. In this example, the position of the 'l' character and the 'H' character are reversed to illustrate that the order of characters in the array doesn't matter.
[!code-cppConceptual.String.BasicOps#20] [!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#20] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#20]
This code displays World! to the console.
The xref:System.String.Remove%2A?displayProperty=nameWithType method removes a specified number of characters that begin at a specified position in an existing string. This method assumes a zero-based index.
The following example removes 10 characters from a string beginning at position five of a zero-based index of the string.
[!code-cppConceptual.String.BasicOps#21] [!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#21] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#21]
You can also remove a specified character or substring from a string by calling the xref:System.String.Replace%28System.String%2CSystem.String%29?displayProperty=nameWithType method and specifying an empty string (xref:System.String.Empty?displayProperty=nameWithType) as the replacement. The following example removes all commas from a string:
[!code-csharpConceptual.String.BasicOps#23] [!code-vbConceptual.String.BasicOps#23]