There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third works. --Alan J. Perlis

Extract Keywords from a Search String in C#

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Summary

When a user enters a string into a textbox to initiate a search, the developer has to parse that string and convert it to a query of some kind. This little snippet uses a very simple regular expression to extract the keywords from the search string as an array of strings. From this array you can then create your search query.

public static string[] GetSearchWords(string text)
{
	string pattern = @"\S+";
	Regex re = new Regex(pattern);

	MatchCollection matches = re.Matches(text);
	string[] words = new string[matches.Count];
	for (int i=0; i<matches.Count; i++)
	{
		words[i] = matches[i].Value;
	}
	return words;
}

Dont' forget the using directive:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions

 

Version: 6.0.20200920.1535