C#: String Essential Training

Course details

In the world of software development, a string is a series of characters. And regardless of which programming language you're using, it's one of the most important data types you'll be working with. In this course, Walt Ritscher takes a focused look at how to work with the string class in the .NET framework. Walt reviews how to manipulate string content, parse strings, format numeric and date types, and more. Plus, he considers how cultural differences impact strings and shows how to work with the CultureInfo class.

Learning objectives
Declaring and initializing a string variable
Getting a char from a string
Using char methods to analyze Unicode data
Three ways to work with string literals
Composing strings
Splitting strings into an array
How custom types format and parse strings
Formatting numeric and date types
Comparing and sorting

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Working with text in .NET
02 - How to access and clone the GitHub code
03 - Open the cloned solution in Visual Studio
04 - Work with Git branches

1. Overview

05 - .NET, text, and strings
06 - What is a string
07 - Declaring a string variable
08 - Initialize a string variable
09 - Immutable - What does that mean in .NET strings

2. The Char Type

10 - The char, the building block of a strong
11 - Initialize a string from a char array
12 - Get a char from a string
13 - Use char methods to analyze Unicode data

3. String Basics

14 - Three ways to work with string literals
15 - Use escape sequences to add control chars to a string
16 - Use verbatim string literals

4. Composing Strings

17 - Combine strings with String.Concat
18 - Combine strings with the concatenation operator
19 - Composite formatting with placeholders
20 - Use C# interpolation for simpler composite formatting
21 - Use StringBuilder to improve performance
22 - Use Perf Monitor to examine performance improvements

5. String Methods

23 - Splitting strings into an array
24 - Use LINQ to query string array
25 - Joining an array into a string
26 - Trim unwanted content from a string
27 - Work with a subset of a string
28 - Verify that string contains search characters
29 - Replace and remove content
30 - Challenge - Better substring
31 - Solution - Better substring

6. How Custom Types Format and Parse Strings

32 - Custom types and string conversions
33 - How custom types are converted to string with toString()
34 - How custom types override toString()
35 - IFormattable and the toString() call order
36 - Custom formats with IFormattable
37 - Working with culture-specific formats
38 - Challenge - Split a string into two numbers
39 - Solution - Convert a string to the type with parse()
40 - Add custom filters to parse()
41 - Prevent exceptions with a tryParse() implementation

7. Formatting

42 - Formatting data with the built-in numeric formats
43 - Formatting data with custom formatters
44 - Apply conditional string formats
45 - Formatting dates
46 - Challenge - Ordinal formatting
47 - Solution - Ordinal formatting

8. Convert and Parse

48 - The parse() method and the Convert class
49 - Use tryParse() for better error handing

9. Culture Information

50 - Why is culture important for strings
51 - The CultureInfo class
52 - Use culture when formatting strings
53 - Invariant culture and strings

10. Compare and Sort

54 - How string comparison works in .NET
55 - Test for equality with String.Equals
56 - Compare strings with String.Compare
57 - Sort strings with Array.Sort and LINQ

Conclusion

58 - Next steps