[RESOLVED] [2005] Advanced String Manipulation

[GedOfEarthsea]

Hello, I am having trouble with a program that I am making. I have a txt file and I load it in as a string. The txt file contains something like this:

www.vbforums.com.
------------------------------------------------------
Record Name . . . . . : www.vbforums.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 85014
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Answer
A (Host) Record . . . :
63.236.73.220

Record Name . . . . . : vbforums.com
Record Type . . . . . : 2
Time To Live . . . . : 85014
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Authority
NS Record . . . . . :
ns1.internet.com

Record Name . . . . . : vbforums.com
Record Type . . . . . : 2
Time To Live . . . . : 85014
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Authority
NS Record . . . . . :
ns3.internet.com

Record Name . . . . . : ns1.internet.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 85014
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Additional
A (Host) Record . . . :
63.236.72.133

Record Name . . . . . : ns3.internet.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 85014
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Additional
A (Host) Record . . . :
63.236.72.135

It is just a log from a cmd command "ipconfig /displaydns"

I would like to be able to just get out any substring that ends with the following:

.com
.net
.org
.info
.edu
.de
.biz
.tv
.us
.co.uk
.eu

And then it will output this:

www.vbforums.com
www.vbforums.com
vbforums.com
ns1.internet.com
vbforums.com
ns3.internet.com
ns1.internet.com
ns3.internet.com

How in the world would I do that?

Thanks

[Troy Lundin]

Well, you can split the file by line using the following:

Dim textFile as String() = IO.File.ReadAllLines(filename)

To find out what a line ends with use the EndsWith method:

Dim s As String = "www.vbforums.com"
If s.EndsWith(".com") Then
' It does
Else
' It does not
End If

[GedOfEarthsea]

Thanks a lot.

If it is not always www.vbforums.com what would I make s equal to?

[Troy Lundin]

My bad I wasn't thinking straight.

When you read the file into the textFile variable (in my last post) then you would read through that like this:

Dim output As List(Of String)
        For Each s As String In textFile
            If s.EndsWith(".com") OrElse s.EndsWith(".net") Then
                ' Now we will grab the last part of the line
                output.Add(Split(s, Chr(32))(temp.Length - 1))
            End If
        Next

That code is untested but should work. Output will contain all the addresses.

[GedOfEarthsea]

The following is my full code so far, but with it I get: "Index was outside the bounds of the array."

Dim i As Integer
        Dim textFile As String() = IO.File.ReadAllLines("C:\dns.txt")
        Dim output As List(Of String)
        For Each s As String In File.ReadAllLines("C:\dns.txt")
            If s.EndsWith(".com") OrElse s.EndsWith(".net") Then
                ' Now we will grab the last part of the line
                output.Add(Split(s, Chr(32))(textFile.Length - 1))
            End If
        Next
        For i = 0 To output.Capacity
            txtURLS.Text = output.Item(i) - 1 & vbNewLine
        Next

[Troy Lundin]

For i = 0 To output.Capacity

Should be:

For i = 0 To output.Capacity - 1

You are splitting the file with this:

Dim textFile As String() = IO.File.ReadAllLines("C:\dns.txt")

So instead of this:

For Each s As String In File.ReadAllLines("C:\dns.txt")

Use:

For Each s As String In textFile

[Edneeis]

This regular expression pattern will work:
[a-zA-Z0-9\.]+\.(com|net|org|info|edu|de|biz|tv|us|co|uk|eu)

Here is an example for you:

'get the contents of the file
Dim data As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("DNSLog.txt")
'get something to store the results in for display
Dim result As New System.Text.StringBuilder
'create the pattern to match by
Dim pattern As String = "[a-zA-Z0-9\.]+\.(com|net|org|info|edu|de|biz|tv|us|co|uk|eu)"
'loop through all matches and add them to the results to be displayed
For Each m As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches(data, pattern)
      result.AppendFormat("{1}{0}", Environment.NewLine, m.Value)
Next
'display the results
MsgBox(result.ToString)

Of course the length of the RegEx calls could be trimmed down a bit with an imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

[GedOfEarthsea]

Thanks a lot. Plus rep for you both

[GedOfEarthsea]

Now I am having troubles deleting duplicate lines for some reason.

I got this code for erasing duplicate lines, but it isn't working when I try modifying it for this application:

Dim Lines As New ArrayList
        'put all the lines of the textfile into the arraylist
        Lines.AddRange(IO.File.ReadAllLines("C:\dns.txt"))
        'loop the arraylist in reverse because the IndexOf searches top to bottom
        For i As Integer = Lines.Count - 1 To 0 Step -1
            'if the return index is smaller than the index of the line we are
            'searching for then we can remove that line because there is a duplicate
            If Lines.IndexOf(Lines(i)) < i Then
                Lines.RemoveAt(i)
            End If
        Next

[Edneeis]

It is easiest if you never add the duplicate result:

'get the contents of the file
        Dim data As String = IO.File.ReadAllText("DNSLog.txt")
        'get something to store the results in for display
        Dim result As New System.Text.StringBuilder
        'create the pattern to match by
        Dim pattern As String = "[a-zA-Z0-9\.]+\.(com|net|org|info|edu|de|biz|tv|us|co|uk|eu)"
        'loop through all matches and add them to the results to be displayed
        For Each m As System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match In System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Matches(data, pattern)
            'check if the result is already part of the results
            If Not result.ToString.Contains(String.Format("{1}{0}", Environment.NewLine, m.Value)) Then
                'only add new result if it is not a duplicate
                result.AppendFormat("{1}{0}", Environment.NewLine, m.Value)
            End If
        Next
        'display the results
        MsgBox(result.ToString)

[GedOfEarthsea]

Ok, thanks a lot again.

This is just going to be a program that monitors what websites you are going on (for kids, students, ect...) Good parental/administration tool.