Better way of replacing?

[pOrmsby]

Hi,

I have a code snippet that cleans a string of various characters.

    Public Function cleanthis(ByRef stringer As String) As String

        Dim stringtest As String = stringer.Trim
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("/", " ")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace(":", " ")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace(";", " ")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("'", "")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("(", "")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace(")", "")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace(" ", "-")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("---", "-")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("--", "-")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace("&", "and")
        stringtest = stringtest.Replace(",", "")
        cleanthis= stringtest.Trim

    End Function

Is there a better way to do it than this?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Regards

Peter

[kareninstructor]

Seems like this would be best to use string builder rather than keep assigning the string value on each replace.

        Dim DirtyString As String = "//This is a : test;it's (should) replace items --- & also, be fast"
        DirtyString.Cleaner()
        Console.WriteLine(DirtyString)

    <Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()> _
    Public Sub Cleaner(ByRef sender As String)

        Dim SearchItems(,) As String = _
            { _
                {"/", " "}, _
                {":", " "}, _
                {"'", ""}, _
                {"---", "-"}, _
                {"&", "And"}, _
                {"(", ""}, _
                {")", ""} _
            }

        Dim sb As New System.Text.StringBuilder(sender)
        Dim Rows As Integer = SearchItems.GetLength(0) - 1

        For Row As Integer = 0 To Rows
            sb.Replace(SearchItems(Row, 0), SearchItems(Row, 1))
        Next

        sender = sb.ToString

    End Sub

[Sabrina Gage]

Why not use Regex??

--------------------
Sabrina Gage
Free Live Chat Software

[kareninstructor]

Why not use Regex??

--------------------
Sabrina Gage
Free Live Chat Software

To be honest I believe there is no gain in using regular expressions here.

        Dim DirtyString As String = "//This is a : test;it's (should) replace items --- & also, be fast"
        Dim dict As New Dictionary(Of String, String)
        dict.Add("/", "")
        dict.Add(":", "")
        dict.Add("&", "And")

        Console.WriteLine(DirtyString.DictReplace(dict))

    <System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension()> _
    Public Function DictReplace( _
        ByVal sender As String, _
            ByVal UserDictionary As Dictionary(Of String, String)) As String

        Return Regex.Replace(sender, "(" & _
                             String.Join("|", UserDictionary.Keys.ToArray()) & ")", _
                             Function(m As Match) UserDictionary(m.Value))

    End Function

Hopefully someone can poke holes at this method simply because there are issues with using a dictionary.