Text.remove for phone number formatting in vb.net - vb.net

Question

I have a textbox for a phone number that formats the phone number to look like this:
[phone]
but I want it to change back to just numbers when the user is finished with the data entry:
1234567891
Here's my code for formatting the number:
Dim newNumber As String
If txtContactNumberNew.Text.Length = 0 Then
txtContactNumberNew.Text = "N/A"
ElseIf txtContactNumberNew.Text.Length = 10 Then
newNumber = "(" & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(0, 3) & ") " & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(3, 3) & "-" & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(6, 4)
txtContactNumberNew.Text = newNumber
ElseIf txtContactNumberNew.Text.Length > 10 Then
newNumber = "(" & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(0, 3) & ") " & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(3, 3) & "-" & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(6, 4) & " x " & txtContactNumberNew.Text.Substring(10)
txtContactNumberNew.Text = newNumber
ElseIf txtContactNumberNew.Text.Length < 10 Then
MsgBox("Not enough Numbers! Please retype the Phone number", vbExclamation, "Not enough Numbers")
Return
End If
Since I added the parenthesis would this change my character count? I just want the formatting removed when the form is completed.

Answer 1

Consider using the trim method to remove unwanted characters. You could then get the character count of the result.
'List of characters to remove
Dim charsToTrim() As Char = { "("c, ")"c, "-"c}
Dim result As String = txtContactNumberNew.Text.Trim(charsToTrim)
taken from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d4tt83f9.aspx

Answer 2

if you just want the () removed can't you just use replace from regex
System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Replace(str,"[\(|\)|\-|\s]","")