C# – Convert a List to a string

There are two good ways to convert a List<T> to a string: I’ll show examples of both approaches. Using String.Join() String.Join() is the simplest way to convert a List to a string. With this method, you pass in the List and a delimiter and it outputs a string. You can use any delimiter you want. … Read more

C# – Deserialize JSON using different property names

When JSON property names and class property names are different, and you can’t just change the names to match, you have three options: These options affect both deserialization and serialization. Let’s say you have the following JSON with camel-cased property names: Here’s an example of using the JsonPropertyName attribute: Note: The Newtonsoft equivalent is [JsonProperty(“title”)] … Read more

C# – Save a list of strings to a file

The simplest way to save a list of strings to a file is to use File.WriteAllLines(). This creates (or overwrites) the file and writes each string on a new line. The resulting file looks like this: Note: Showing non-printable newline characters \r\n for clarity. Specifying the separator character What if you want to separate each … Read more

C# – Sending query strings with HttpClient

Query strings start with ‘?’ and have one or more key-value pairs separated by ‘&’. All characters except a-z, A-Z, 0-9 have to be encoded, including Unicode characters. When you use HttpClient, it automatically encodes the URI for you (internally, it delegates this task to the Uri class). This means when you include a query … Read more

C# – Remove non-alphanumeric characters from a string

The simplest way to remove non-alphanumeric characters from a string is to use regex: Note: Don’t pass in a null, otherwise you’ll get an exception. Regex is the simplest options for removing characters by “category” (as opposed to removing arbitrary lists of characters or removing characters by position). The downside is that regex is the … Read more

C# – Remove a list of characters from a string

When you want to remove a list of characters from a string, loop through the list and use string.Replace(): Note that string.Replace() returns a new string (because strings are immutable). Running this outputs the following: This is the fastest approach (in .NET 6+). Linq approach: Where() + ToArray() + new string() Another option for removing … Read more

HackerRank – Two Strings solution

In this article, I’ll explain how to solve the Two Strings algorithm problem on HackerRank. Problem statement: Given two strings, determine if they have a substring in common. The strings can have up to 100k characters. Example: Given “hello world” and “world”, do they have a substring in common? Yes, they many substrings in common. … Read more

Moq – Return different values with SetupSequence

When you’re mocking a method that’s called multiple times, you may want to change the behavior of the method each time it’s called. The way you do this with Moq is by using SetupSequence(), like this: Note: You can also make it throw an exception in the sequence. Example of code I want to test … Read more