String manipulation

Hey guys/girls,

I am still working on my practice exam for tomorrow and have another question.

If I have a text file that I am reading with streamreader and it contains various entries, some are names and some are grades. The names are in the text file in the following format: Alice MacLeod

What I want to know is how I could read that line and output it to a listbox in the following format: MacLeod, A

Any help would be appreciated.

This is what I have, but I can't seem to figure out how to get the last name. I have declared some variables that are not used yet, just ignore them.

Quote:

---

Sub GetInfo()
Dim sr As IO.StreamReader
Dim name, fName, lName As String
Dim x, y, nameLength, space As Double
Dim numOfGrades As Double
sr = IO.File.OpenText("Lab5studentgrades.txt")
Do While sr.Peek <> -1
name = sr.ReadLine
nameLength = CDbl(name.Length)
lName = name.Substring(name.IndexOf(" "), nameLength - 1)
fName = name.Substring(0, 1)
lstOutput1.Items.Add("Name: " & lName & ", " & fName)
Loop
End Sub

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You can use the split function. Just say
Dim array as string()
array = name.split(" ")
and then firstname = array(0) and lastname = array(1)

Hope this helps

As Kimmy said,

or to keep with your original method, although I changed the Streamreader and name length should be an Integer I think:

Code:

---

        Dim name, fName, lName As String
        Dim x, y, space As Double
        Dim numOfGrades As Double = 0
        Dim nameLength As Integer
        Dim break As Integer = 0


        Dim sr As New IO.StreamReader("names.txt")
        Do While sr.Peek <> -1
            name = sr.ReadLine
            nameLength = name.Length
            fName = name.Substring(0, 1)
            break = CInt(name.IndexOf(" ") + 1)
            lName = name.Substring(break, nameLength - break)
            Me.ListBox1.Items.Add("Name: " & lName & ", " & fName)
        Loop

        sr.Close()
        sr.Dispose()

---

try:

VB Code:

Dim sr As New System.IO.StreamReader("filename")
Dim str As String = sr.ReadLine()
Dim strAry() As String = str.Split(" ")
Dim dataYouWant As String = strAry(1) & ", " & strAry(0).SubString(0,1) 'this should output "MacLeod, A"

You'll have to figure out the loops to go thru the whole file

I got it working, thanks for the help!

Is it possible to make a loop stop when sr.peek reads a line containing "-1" ?

Like this:

Code:

---

'Code
name = sr.ReadLine
If name = "-1" Then Exit Do
'Code

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stimbo

Like this:

Code:

---

'Code
name = sr.ReadLine
If name = "-1" Then Exit Do
'Code

---

---

hmm..that is what I thought, but for some reason I can't get it to work.

Whats your code?

1) try it without the quotes. You might be running into a conversion issue. (you can also try explicit conversion)
2) I have better luck with checking for < 0 than = -1. (although it should work the same in this case)

He's not referring to the end of stream (at least I don't think so...)

Code:

---

sr.peek reads a line containing "-1"

---

I take it he means the value of a string being "-1", hence the use of quotes.

I could be wrong though but his response seemed to indicate the answer was fine, it just wont work. It does for me though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stimbo

He's not referring to the end of stream (at least I don't think so...)

Code:

---

sr.peek reads a line containing "-1"

---

I take it he means the value of a string being "-1", hence the use of quotes.

I could be wrong though but his response seemed to indicate the answer was fine, it just wont work. It does for me though.

---

Yeah it is a string of "-1" that I am trying to read. I am going to work on it a bit more and see what I can do.