Split a string on whitespace characters in C#

This article illustrates the different techniques to split a string on the whitespace characters in C#.

The standard solution to split a string on the given characters is using the String.Split() method. If no delimiter is specified, it splits the string on whitespace characters. Here’s an example of its usage:

using System;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

String s = "Split by\twhitespace";

string[] tokens = s.Split();

Console.WriteLine(String.Join(", ", tokens)); // Split, by, whitespace

}

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To handle multiple spaces, you can use the String.Split(char[]) method overload with StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries option, as shown below.

using System;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

String s = "Split by\t\twhitespace";

string[] tokens = s.Split(new char[0], StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Console.WriteLine(String.Join(", ", tokens)); // Split, by, whitespace

}

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The above solution creates a new object. To avoid creating a new object, you can use (char[]) null instead of new char[0].

using System;

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

String s = "Split by\t\twhitespace";

string[] tokens = s.Split((char[]) null, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Console.WriteLine(String.Join(", ", tokens)); // Split, by, whitespace

}

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You can also create an extension function to split a string on whitespace. To split the string only on some whitespace characters, you can pass them in the char array.

using System;

public static class StringExtensions

{

public static string[] SplitOnWhitespace(this string input)

{

char[] whitespace = new char[] { ' ', '\t', '\r', '\n' };

return input.Split(whitespace, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

}

public class Example

{

public static void Main()

{

String s = "Split by\twhitespace";

string[] tokens = s.SplitOnWhitespace();

Console.WriteLine(String.Join(", ", tokens)); // Split, by, whitespace

}

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That’s all about splitting a string on the whitespace characters in C#.

Split a string on whitespace characters in C#

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