Reading a text file

solomon mwika

am trying to read random words from a textfile . well have managed to read the words and display them in textblock problem is i only need to read words of certain

length only for example 5 to ten letters only

here is my code so far

private void Mywords()
{

var ResourceStream = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri("TextFile1.txt", UriKind.Relative));
using (Stream Myfilestream = ResourceStream.Stream)
{
string s = "";
StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(Myfilestream);
s = myStreamReader.ReadToEnd();

s = s.Trim(); //tlbRandomWords.Text = s; // char[] delimiters = { '\n', '\r' };

string[] words = s.Split(); // int index = rand.Next(0,delimiters.Count());
if (s.Split().Length < 6)
{

tlbRandomWords.Text = words[rand.Next(words.Count())].ToUpper();
}
}
}

7 Replies

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Vulpes12y ago
Accepted answer
If I were you, I'd use a regular expression for this as you can then easily filter out those words with between 5 and 10 letters:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

// ....

private void Mywords()
{
var ResourceStream = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri("TextFile1.txt", UriKind.Relative));
using (Stream Myfilestream = ResourceStream.Stream)
{
string s = "";
StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(Myfilestream);
s = myStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
string regExp = @"\b\w{5,10}\b";
MatchCollection words = Regex.Matches(s, regExp);
tlbRandomWords.Text = words[rand.Next(words.Count)].Value.ToUpper();
}
}
Vulpes12y ago
@solomon,

\b\w{5,10}\b is a regular expression which matches words between 5 and 10 characters long.

\b and \w are what are called 'metacharacters' in regular expression terminology.

\w matches any of the following: a -z, A - Z or 0-9 and also the underscore _ character. {5,10} means between 5 and 10 consecutive characters of those types.

\b means a word boundary: generally a space, punctuation mark or the beginning or end of the line or string. However, the actual boundary character (if there is one) isn't included in the overall match.

When you put this regular expression in a string, it's easier to use a 'verbatim' string (prefixed by @) so the backslashes aren't treated as normal C# escape characters (\n, \r, \t etc).

This line then finds all the matches in the text:

MatchCollection words = Regex.Matches(s, regExp);

You can then use the indexer syntax, [], to select a Match object at random from this collection. When you do that, you need to use the Match object's Value property to get the actual word.

@Sunil

Well, this line:

if (words[i].Length > 5 && words[i].Length < 5)

should be:

if (words[i].Length >= 5 && words[i].Length < = 10)

However, a more fundamental problem is that you need to filter these words out before you can choose one at random.

Another approach would to keep on choosing words at random until you get one that's between 5 and 10 characters. However, the code for this is rather messy compared to the Regex approach.
SUNIL GUTTA12y ago
Thanks for clarifying mate . Yes Vulpes provides best he is best
solomon mwika12y ago
@sunil there is no problem with above code problem is am testing on an emulator and will take much time processing the threads with a for loop
SUNIL GUTTA12y ago
@vulpes any issue with my code i guess tested my code filters words with 5-10 characters ..
solomon mwika12y ago
kindly explain the lines i have commented on this code dont reaaly understand what is going on can i use a variable here @"\b\w{5,10}\b"; string s = ""; StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(Myfilestream); s = myStreamReader.ReadToEnd(); // string regExp = @"\b\w{5,10}\b"; // MatchCollection words = Regex.Matches(s, regExp); tlbRandomWords.Text = words[rand.Next(words.Count)].Value.ToUpper();

and by the way as a bonus it worked well but really need a little under standing
SUNIL GUTTA12y ago
Hi mate check this out

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;

namespace countwords
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("C:\\test.txt");
string str= sr.ReadToEnd();
sr.Close();

string[] words = str.Split();
for (int i = 0; i < words.Length ; i++)
{
if (words[i].Length > 5 && words[i].Length < 5)
{
Console.WriteLine(words[i]);
}
}

Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}

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