How can I check if a string contains a character in C#?
You can use the extension method .Contains()
from the namespace System.Linq
:
using System.Linq;
...
if (abc.ToLower().Contains('s')) { }
And also, to check if a boolean expression is true, you don't need == true
Since the Contains
method is an extension method, my solution might be confusing. Here are two versions that don't require you to add using System.Linq;
:
if (abc.ToLower().IndexOf('s') != -1) { }
// or:
if (abc.IndexOf("s", StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) != -1) { }
Update
If you want to, you can write your own extensions method for easier reuse:
public static class MyStringExtensions
{
public static bool ContainsAnyCaseInvariant(this string haystack, char needle)
{
return haystack.IndexOf(needle, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) != -1;
}
public static bool ContainsAnyCase(this string haystack, char needle)
{
return haystack.IndexOf(needle, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase) != -1;
}
}
Then you can call them like this:
if (def.ContainsAnyCaseInvariant('s')) { }
// or
if (def.ContainsAnyCase('s')) { }
In most cases when dealing with user data, you actually want to use CurrentCultureIgnoreCase
(or the ContainsAnyCase
extension method), because that way you let the system handle upper/lowercase issues, which depend on the language. When dealing with computational issues, like names of HTML tags and so on, you want to use the invariant culture.
For example: In Turkish, the uppercase letter I
in lowercase is ı
(without a dot), and not i
(with a dot).
You can use the IndexOf
method, which has a suitable overload for string comparison types:
if (def.IndexOf("s", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0) ...
Also, you would not need the == true
, since an if statement only expects an expression that evaluates to a bool
.
Use the function String.Contains();
an example call,
abs.Contains("s"); // to look for lower case s
here is more from MSDN.