Custom sort file name string array - asp.net

I'm retrieving a string array of files and I would like to custom sort them by a substring in the file name...using C# **.NET 3.5. Below is what I am working with.
<% string[] files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles("...path..." + pageName + "\\reference\\");
files = String.Join(",", files).Replace("...path...", "").Replace("\\reference\\", "").Replace(pageName, "").Split(new Char[] { ',' });
foreach (String item in files)
{
Response.Write("<a href=" + pageName + "/reference/" + System.IO.Path.GetFileName(item) + " target='_blank'>" + item.Replace("_", " ").Replace(".pdf", " ") + "</a>");
}
%>
I'm a C# noob, and I don't know where to go from here. Basically, I'm looking for a substring in the file name to determine the order (e.g., "index","reference","list"; where any file including the string "index" would be listed first). Perhaps there is a better way to do it. Any help would be appreciated.

You can use Linq to order the array by the filenames. In general, use the Path class if you're working with paths.
string fullPath = Path.Combine(directory, pageName, "reference");
var filePaths = Directory.EnumerateFiles(fullPath, "*.*", SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly)
.Select(fp => new{ FullPath = fp, FileName=Path.GetFileName(fp) })
.OrderByDescending(x => x.FileName.IndexOf("index", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0)
.ThenByDescending(x => x.FileName.IndexOf("reference", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0)
.ThenByDescending(x => x.FileName.IndexOf("list", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) >= 0)
.ThenBy(x=> x.FileName)
.Select(x => x.FullPath);
foreach(string filePath in filePaths)
;// ...
If you don't want to compare case-insensitively (so that "index" and "Index" are considered the same) use String.Contains instead of String.IndexOf + StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase.

Here's an easy way I use when I run into this problem.
Define the order of the substrings in a list. Then for each item, check to see whats the first thing that contains that item. Then sort by the order of the substring in the list.
public class SubStringSorter : IComparer<string>
{
public int Compare(string x, string y)
{
var source = x.ToLowerInvariant();
var target = y.ToLowerInvariant();
var types = new List<string> { "base", "data", "model", "services", "interceptor", "controllers", "directives", "filters", "app", "tests", "unittests" };
var sourceType = types.IndexOf(types.FirstOrDefault(source.Contains));
var targetType = types.IndexOf(types.FirstOrDefault(target.Contains));
return sourceType.CompareTo(targetType);
}
}
To sort your files, do something like
var list = new List<string>{ "baseFile", "servicesFile", "this ModElstuff" };
list.Sort(new SubStringSorter());
And the output
You could even go one step further and give the substring sorter the list as part of its constructor so you can re-use the substring sort order with other items. The example I posted tests if the string exists in any context, but if you are more interested in it starting with a string you can do that too.

Related

Sort FileInfo (DirectoryInfo) by filename

I am using the below code to access the files in a certain path:
Dim dirInfo As New DirectoryInfo(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory & "/images/JobImages/" & projectname & "/" & ImageFolder & "/")
Dim allFiles As IO.FileInfo() = dirInfo.GetFiles("lightbox*.png")
This is bringing back the following files in the following order:
- Lightbox 4 - Lightbox3 - Lightbox2 - Lightbox1
My question is, is there a way to sort it so it returns the other way round? So as: -Lightbox1 - Lightbox2 - Lightbox3 - Lightbox4
You can use the Linq .OrderBy() method to sort the results, your problem will be that the sort will be done using a string comparison.
To fix this you would need to first extract just the number part of the filename then use this results of this to do the sorting.
void Main()
{
var files = new[]
{
"Lightbox1.png",
"Lightbox2.png",
"Lightbox10.png",
"Lightbox4.png",
"Lightbox3.png",
"Lightbox11.png",
"Lightbox7.png",
};
foreach (var f in files.OrderBy(x=>getFileNumber(x)))
Console.WriteLine(f);
}
int getFileNumber(string filename)
{
var n = new String(filename.Where(x=>char.IsNumber(x)).ToArray());
if (int.TryParse(n, out int i))
return i;
// parse failed
return -1;
}

Asp.Net Mvc Uniq Routing

I am creating a site which is personel blog. I want to give a specific routing when I enter a new blog in admin panel. Normally when I save it matches the database id. I do not have access to static routing anyway.
I want the link parameter to be stored in the database when the blog is being entered via the routing
Default : localhost/ControlName/ActionName/id (localhost/Blog/GetBlogs/2)
bu I want that
Wanted : localhost/ControlName/ActionName/storedValue(localhost/Blog/GetBlog/bluesky)
or
localhost/storedValue(localhost/bluesky)
What you're talking about is a slug. You just have to add a property on your blog class to hold some unique string value that will compose part of the URL. For example:
[Index]
[StringLength(80)]
public string Slug { get; set; }
Then, when creating the blog, you either manually specify the value for Slug (make it a field in the form) or compose it by "slugifying" the title of the blog or something. I use the following string extensions:
public static string RemoveDiacritics(this string s)
{
s = s ?? string.Empty;
if (s.Length > 0)
{
char[] chars = new char[s.Length];
int charIndex = 0;
s = s.Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormD);
for (int i = 0; i < s.Length; i++)
{
char c = s[i];
if (CharUnicodeInfo.GetUnicodeCategory(c) != UnicodeCategory.NonSpacingMark)
chars[charIndex++] = c;
}
return new string(chars, 0, charIndex).Normalize(NormalizationForm.FormC);
}
return s;
}
public static string Slugify(this string s, int maxLength = 80)
{
s = s ?? string.Empty;
//First to lower case
s = s.ToLowerInvariant().RemoveDiacritics();
//Replace spaces
s = Regex.Replace(s, #"\s", "-", RegexOptions.Compiled);
//Remove invalid chars
s = Regex.Replace(s, #"[^a-z0-9s\-_]", "", RegexOptions.Compiled);
//Trim dashes from end
s = s.Trim('-', '_');
//Replace double occurences of - or _
s = Regex.Replace(s, #"([\-_]){2,}", "$1", RegexOptions.Compiled);
while (s.Length > maxLength)
{
var pieces = s.Split('-');
pieces = pieces.Take(pieces.Count() - 1).ToArray();
s = string.Join("-", pieces);
}
return s;
}
Then, for example, you could do something like:
blog.Slug = blog.Title.Slugify();
However you create the slug, you'll then use the URL param to look up the blog by that:
public ActionResult GetBlog(string slug)
{
var blog = db.Blogs.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Slug == slug);
This is why the Slug property is decorated with [Index] above. That makes EF create an index for the column when it creates the table/adds the column. Any column you intend to query on should be indexed for performance reasons. Also, you have to define a set length for the column, as NVARCHAR(MAX) (the default column type for a string) cannot be indexed.

Is there a simple way in ASP.Net to get the current URL with some query parameters changed?

I've had several cases where I had a page with several query parameters - most recently a search results page - and needed to create a link to the same page with one or more query parameters changed in the URL. This seems like such a common use case that I feel as though there must be some simple built-in way of doing it.
Right now, I'm using a function I wrote which takes in a dictionary of parameters and values and merges them with the params and values from Request.QueryString. Parameters given with a null value are removed. It works, but I'm open to simpler methods.
Minor improvements I'd suggest:
//...
{
UriBuilder ub = new UriBuilder(Request.Url);
//...
ub.Query = string.Join("&", parameters.Select(kv => string.Format("{0}={1}", Server.UrlEncode(kv.Key), Server.UrlEncode(kv.Value))));
return ub.ToString();
}
Edit
Actually the return value should also be a Uri type but I didn't want to introduce any breaking changes.
The function I'm using now:
public string ThisPageWithParams(IDictionary<string, string> newParameters)
{
string url = Request.Url.AbsolutePath + "?";
var parameters = new Dictionary<string, string>();
foreach (string k in Request.QueryString)
{
parameters[k] = Request.QueryString[k];
}
foreach (var kv in newParameters)
{
if (newParameters[kv.Key] == null)
{
parameters.Remove(kv.Key);
}
else
{
parameters[kv.Key] = kv.Value;
}
}
url += string.Join("&", parameters.Select(kv => Server.UrlEncode(kv.Key) + "=" + Server.UrlEncode(kv.Value)));
return url;
}

XmlReader.ReadtoFollowing has state EndofFile why?

I've produced this code to read an xml file from a string, however it has problems. Notably the ReadToFollowing() method returns nothing. It seems to seek the whole xmlstring, then set the XMLReader state to the EndofFile. I'm very puzzled by this, ReadStartElement() works and the next element is read as "heading" as you'd expect.
Here's my code, my idea is to read through the xml pulling out the fields I require;
List<string> contentfields = new List<string>() { "heading", "shortblurb", "description" };
string xml = #"<filemeta filetype='Audio'><heading>Fatigue & Tiredness</heading><shortblurb>shortblurb</shortblurb><description /><Comments /><AlbumTitle /><TrackNumber /><ArtistName /><Year /><Genre /><TrackTitle /></filemeta>";
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xml)))
{
reader.ReadStartElement("filemeta");
foreach (String field_str in contentfields)
{
reader.ReadToFollowing(field_str);
if (reader.Name.ToString() == field_str)
{
Console.WriteLine(field_str + " " + reader.ReadElementContentAsString());
}
}
}
Console.ReadKey();
That's because reader.ReadStartElement("filemeta"); will position the reader on the xml tag heading.
ReadToFollowing will then do 1 read (reading past your heading tag) and then start to seek an element with the name heading. As you just read past it, ReadToFollowing will not find it anymore and read to the end of the file.
If you want to avoid this, change your code like this :
List<string> contentfields = new List<string>() { "heading", "shortblurb", "description" };
string xml = #"<filemeta filetype='Audio'><heading>Fatigue & Tiredness</heading><shortblurb>shortblurb</shortblurb><description /><Comments /><AlbumTitle /><TrackNumber /><ArtistName /><Year /><Genre /><TrackTitle /></filemeta>";
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xml)))
{
reader.ReadStartElement("filemeta");
foreach (String field_str in contentfields)
{
if (reader.Name.ToString() != field_str)
{
reader.ReadToFollowing(field_str);
}
//still keep this if because we could have reached the end of the xml document
if (reader.Name == field_str)
{
Console.WriteLine(field_str + " " + reader.ReadElementContentAsString());
}
}
}
Console.ReadKey();

NameValueCollection to URL Query?

I know i can do this
var nv = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(req.RawUrl);
But is there a way to convert this back to a url?
var newUrl = HttpUtility.Something("/page", nv);
Simply calling ToString() on the NameValueCollection will return the name value pairs in a name1=value1&name2=value2 querystring ready format. Note that NameValueCollection types don't actually support this and it's misleading to suggest this, but the behavior works here due to the internal type that's actually returned, as explained below.
Thanks to #mjwills for pointing out that the HttpUtility.ParseQueryString method actually returns an internal HttpValueCollection object rather than a regular NameValueCollection (despite the documentation specifying NameValueCollection). The HttpValueCollection automatically encodes the querystring when using ToString(), so there's no need to write a routine that loops through the collection and uses the UrlEncode method. The desired result is already returned.
With the result in hand, you can then append it to the URL and redirect:
var nameValues = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(Request.QueryString.ToString());
string url = Request.Url.AbsolutePath + "?" + nameValues.ToString();
Response.Redirect(url);
Currently the only way to use a HttpValueCollection is by using the ParseQueryString method shown above (other than reflection, of course). It looks like this won't change since the Connect issue requesting this class be made public has been closed with a status of "won't fix."
As an aside, you can call the Add, Set, and Remove methods on nameValues to modify any of the querystring items before appending it. If you're interested in that see my response to another question.
string q = String.Join("&",
nvc.AllKeys.Select(a => a + "=" + HttpUtility.UrlEncode(nvc[a])));
Make an extension method that uses a couple of loops. I prefer this solution because it's readable (no linq), doesn't require System.Web.HttpUtility, and it supports duplicate keys.
public static string ToQueryString(this NameValueCollection nvc)
{
if (nvc == null) return string.Empty;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
foreach (string key in nvc.Keys)
{
if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(key)) continue;
string[] values = nvc.GetValues(key);
if (values == null) continue;
foreach (string value in values)
{
sb.Append(sb.Length == 0 ? "?" : "&");
sb.AppendFormat("{0}={1}", Uri.EscapeDataString(key), Uri.EscapeDataString(value));
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
Example
var queryParams = new NameValueCollection()
{
{ "order_id", "0000" },
{ "item_id", "1111" },
{ "item_id", "2222" },
{ null, "skip entry with null key" },
{ "needs escaping", "special chars ? = &" },
{ "skip entry with null value", null }
};
Console.WriteLine(queryParams.ToQueryString());
Output
?order_id=0000&item_id=1111&item_id=2222&needs%20escaping=special%20chars%20%3F%20%3D%20%26
This should work without too much code:
NameValueCollection nameValues = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(String.Empty);
nameValues.Add(Request.QueryString);
// modify nameValues if desired
var newUrl = "/page?" + nameValues;
The idea is to use HttpUtility.ParseQueryString to generate an empty collection of type HttpValueCollection. This class is a subclass of NameValueCollection that is marked as internal so that your code cannot easily create an instance of it.
The nice thing about HttpValueCollection is that the ToString method takes care of the encoding for you. By leveraging the NameValueCollection.Add(NameValueCollection) method, you can add the existing query string parameters to your newly created object without having to first convert the Request.QueryString collection into a url-encoded string, then parsing it back into a collection.
This technique can be exposed as an extension method as well:
public static string ToQueryString(this NameValueCollection nameValueCollection)
{
NameValueCollection httpValueCollection = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(String.Empty);
httpValueCollection.Add(nameValueCollection);
return httpValueCollection.ToString();
}
Actually, you should encode the key too, not just value.
string q = String.Join("&",
nvc.AllKeys.Select(a => $"{HttpUtility.UrlEncode(a)}={HttpUtility.UrlEncode(nvc[a])}"));
Because a NameValueCollection can have multiple values for the same key, if you are concerned with the format of the querystring (since it will be returned as comma-separated values rather than "array notation") you may consider the following.
Example
var nvc = new NameValueCollection();
nvc.Add("key1", "val1");
nvc.Add("key2", "val2");
nvc.Add("empty", null);
nvc.Add("key2", "val2b");
Turn into: key1=val1&key2[]=val2&empty&key2[]=val2b rather than key1=val1&key2=val2,val2b&empty.
Code
string qs = string.Join("&",
// "loop" the keys
nvc.AllKeys.SelectMany(k => {
// "loop" the values
var values = nvc.GetValues(k);
if(values == null) return new[]{ k };
return nvc.GetValues(k).Select( (v,i) =>
// 'gracefully' handle formatting
// when there's 1 or more values
string.Format(
values.Length > 1
// pick your array format: k[i]=v or k[]=v, etc
? "{0}[]={1}"
: "{0}={1}"
, k, HttpUtility.UrlEncode(v), i)
);
})
);
or if you don't like Linq so much...
string qs = nvc.ToQueryString(); // using...
public static class UrlExtensions {
public static string ToQueryString(this NameValueCollection nvc) {
return string.Join("&", nvc.GetUrlList());
}
public static IEnumerable<string> GetUrlList(this NameValueCollection nvc) {
foreach(var k in nvc.AllKeys) {
var values = nvc.GetValues(k);
if(values == null) { yield return k; continue; }
for(int i = 0; i < values.Length; i++) {
yield return
// 'gracefully' handle formatting
// when there's 1 or more values
string.Format(
values.Length > 1
// pick your array format: k[i]=v or k[]=v, etc
? "{0}[]={1}"
: "{0}={1}"
, k, HttpUtility.UrlEncode(values[i]), i);
}
}
}
}
As has been pointed out in comments already, with the exception of this answer most of the other answers address the scenario (Request.QueryString is an HttpValueCollection, "not" a NameValueCollection) rather than the literal question.
Update: addressed null value issue from comment.
The short answer is to use .ToString() on the NameValueCollection and combine it with the original url.
However, I'd like to point out a few things:
You cant use HttpUtility.ParseQueryString on Request.RawUrl. The ParseQueryString() method is looking for a value like this: ?var=value&var2=value2.
If you want to get a NameValueCollection of the QueryString parameters just use Request.QueryString().
var nv = Request.QueryString;
To rebuild the URL just use nv.ToString().
string url = String.Format("{0}?{1}", Request.Path, nv.ToString());
If you are trying to parse a url string instead of using the Request object use Uri and the HttpUtility.ParseQueryString method.
Uri uri = new Uri("<THE URL>");
var nv = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(uri.Query);
string url = String.Format("{0}?{1}", uri.AbsolutePath, nv.ToString());
I always use UriBuilder to convert an url with a querystring back to a valid and properly encoded url.
var url = "http://my-link.com?foo=bar";
var uriBuilder = new UriBuilder(url);
var query = HttpUtility.ParseQueryString(uriBuilder.Query);
query.Add("yep", "foo&bar");
uriBuilder.Query = query.ToString();
var result = uriBuilder.ToString();
// http://my-link.com:80/?foo=bar&yep=foo%26bar
In AspNet Core 2.0 you can use QueryHelpers AddQueryString method.
As #Atchitutchuk suggested, you can use QueryHelpers.AddQueryString in ASP.NET Core:
public string FormatParameters(NameValueCollection parameters)
{
var queryString = "";
foreach (var key in parameters.AllKeys)
{
foreach (var value in parameters.GetValues(key))
{
queryString = QueryHelpers.AddQueryString(queryString, key, value);
}
};
return queryString.TrimStart('?');
}
This did the trick for me:
public ActionResult SetLanguage(string language = "fr_FR")
{
Request.UrlReferrer.TryReadQueryAs(out RouteValueDictionary parameters);
parameters["language"] = language;
return RedirectToAction("Index", parameters);
}
You can use.
var ur = new Uri("/page",UriKind.Relative);
if this nv is of type string you can append to the uri first parameter.
Like
var ur2 = new Uri("/page?"+nv.ToString(),UriKind.Relative);

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