String.Split returning incorrect array

Question

Attempting to correct an HTML table that is incorrectly formatted. I do not have control over the source, my application just loads the contents of a downloaded file as a regular text file. The file contents are a simple HTML table that is missing the closing </tr> elements. I'm attempting to split the contents on <tr> to get an array to which I can a </tr> to the end of the elements that need it. When I attempt to split the string using fleContents.Split("<tr>").ToList I'm getting a lot more elements in the resulting List(Of String) than there should be.

Here I a short little test code that shows the same behavior:

Dim testSource As String = "<table><tr><td>8172745</td><tr><td>8172745</td></table>"
Dim testArr As String() = testSource.Split("<tr>")

'Maybe try splitting on a variable because you can't use a string literal containging "<>" in the Split method
Dim seper as String = "<tr>"
testArr As String() = testSource.Split(seper)

'feed it a new string directly
testArr = testSource .Split(New String("<tr>"))

I would expect that testArr should contain 3 elements, as follows:

"<table>"

"<td>8172745</td>"

"<td>8172745</td></table>"

However, I am receiving the following array:

""

"table>"

"tr>"

"td>8172745"

"/td>"

"tr>"

"td>8172954"

"/td>"

"/table>"

Can someone please explain why the strings are being split the way they are and how I can go about getting the results I'm expecting?

Justin Niessner · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-31 20:04:28Z

2

Your code is using a different overload of the Split method than you're expecting. You want the method that takes a String[] and StringSplitOptions parameter:

Dim testSource As String = "<table><tr><td>8172745</td><tr><td>8172745</td></table>"
Dim delimeter As String() = { "<tr>" }
Dim testArr As String() = _
    testSource.Split(delimeter, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)

You can see it working at IDEOne:

http://ideone.com/pcw6aq

answered Mar 31, 2015 at 20:04

Justin Niessner

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Comments

Mohammad Farah · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-31 20:00:59Z

1

Try to use Regex like that

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Public Class Form1


    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim testSource As String = "<table><tr><td>8172745</td><tr><td>8172745</td></table>"
        Dim testArr As String() = Regex.Split(testSource, "<tr>")

        'Show The Array in TextBox1
        TextBox1.Lines = testArr

    End Sub
End Class

All The Best

answered Mar 31, 2015 at 20:00

Mohammad Farah

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