i have a string that looks like this
"apples,fish,oranges,bananas,fish"
i want to be able to sort this list and get only the uniques. how do i do it in vb.net? please provide code
A lot of your questions are quite basic, so rather than providing the code I'm going to provide the thought process and let you learn from implementing it.
Firstly, you have a string that contains multiple items separated by commas, so you're going to need to split the string at the commas to get a list. You can use String.Split for that.
You can then use some of the extension methods for IEnumerable<T> to filter and order the list. The ones to look at are Enumerable.Distinct and Enumerable.OrderBy. You can either write these as normal methods, or use Linq syntax.
If you need to get it back into a comma-separated string, then you'll need to re-join the strings using the String.Join method. Note that this needs an array so Enumerable.ToArray will be useful in conjunction.
You can do it using LINQ, like this:
Dim input = "apples,fish,oranges,bananas,fish"
Dim strings = input.Split(","c).Distinct().OrderBy(Function(s) s)
I'm not a VB.NET programmer, but I can give you a suggestion:
Split the string into an array
Create a second array
Cycle through the first array, adding any value that is not in the second.
Upon completion, your second array will have only unique values.
Related
I would like to know how I can convert elements of a column of a DataTable to a list of type string, grouping the elements to avoid repetition.
For example my DataTable would look like this
DataTable
and I want to make a list containing the elements of only "User" without repeating itself using LINQ.
The code I was trying to use is
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().GroupBy(Function(r) r("User").ToString).ToList(Function(g) g.ToList())
But it doesn't work for me since I am new to LINQ and still have problems forming the structures.
I'd use this:
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().Select(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).Distinct().ToList()
If you wanted a GroupBy solution it's
InvoiceList = InvoiceDT.AsEnumerable().GroupBy(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).Select(Function(g) g.Key).ToList()
Where your code went wrong was in trying to pass a delegate to ToList; it doesn't take one (and you wouldn't ToList the g either, as it's a list of data rows with all varying properties).
To reshape our IGrouping (something like a list of objects that all share the same Key, which is a property of the list that the IGrouping represents) produced by the groupby into a sequence of string Keys we Select the Key, and then ToList that
There is a lot of back and forthing between developers over things like ToList vs ToArray - some people universally use ToList because, for collections of an unknown number of elements, both list and array will grow and resize repeatedly in the same way but using ToArray requires one additional resizing step at the end to trim off any unused slots. Mostly that's trivial in terms of an overall performance consideration and should be weighed against the benefit of releasing the memory with the trim. Getting into finer details is way beyond the scope of this answer but you can read some huge blog posts about it.
I personally think it's more important to generate sensible code by calling the method that results in the relevant type depending on what you plan to do with it; I ToList if I need List functionality (add/insert/remove).. I prefer ToArray if an array suits the follow-on purposes (read/write/random access, no insert or delete), and if I'll only ever enumerate it I don't To... anything at all - I just ForEach the result of the query, which can give a bigger performance boost than anything else because it means I may not have to enumerate the entire set (if I stop early) or allocate memory all at once for doing so (if I'm writing to a socket or file)
On the use of ToString; it's worth avoiding if you think you'll fall into a pattern where you do it on every column just to get a string. If the column is already a string it's an acceptable way to get the object that DataRow.Item gives you, into a string. If the column is another type it's better to cast it:
DirectCast(r("Age"), Integer)
r.Field(Of Integer)("Age")
Thing is, it's verbose, and ugly, and intellisense doesn't help you out with writing Age or knowing it's an Int. LINQ in VB is bad enough for verbosity without pouring gas on that fire. If you're working with datatables of a known structure, it's a lot nicer if you make strongly typed ones:
Add a new file of type DataSet to your project
Open it so the design surface appears. In the properties grid call it something reasonable, such as AccountsDataSet
Right click, Add Table, call it Invoices
Right click the emppty table, Add Column, call it User
Then use it like:
Dim dt as new AccountsDataSet.InvoicesDataTable
Populate it like:
dt.AddInvoicesRow("John Smith", ... other properties here)
Query it like:
dt.Select(Function(r) r.User).Distinct()
Much nicer than accessing column names by string, and having them be objects that need casting..
Consider the dataset generator as a way to quickly, visually, create poco classes with named, typed properties
Try this
dim list as List(of string) = InvoiceDT.Rows.
Cast(of DataRow)().
Select(Function(r) r("User").ToString()).
Distinct().
ToList()
Here you cast Row collection as IEnumerable(of DataRow), rest is trivial
The list starts empty. Then I want to append an value to it for each iteration in a loop if certain condition is met. I don't see append option in Variable Operation.
You can use string split for this, assuming you know of a delimiter that won't ever be in your list of values. I've used a semi-colon, and $local_joinedList$ starts off empty.
If (certain condition is met)
Variable Operation: $local_joinedList$;$local_newValue$ To $local_joinedList$
End If
String Operation: Split "$local_joinedList$" with delimiter ";" and assign output to $my-list-variable$
This overwrites $my-list-variable$.
If you need to append to an existing list, you can do it the same way by using String Join first, append your values to the string, then split it again afterward.
String Operation: Join elements of "$my-list-variable$" by delimiter ";" and assign output to $local_joinedList$
Lists are buggy in Automation Anywhere and have been buggy for several versions. I suggest not using them and instead use XML.
It it a much more versatile approach and allows you to do much more that with lists. You can search, filter, insert, delete etc.
For the example you mention, you would use the "Insert Node" command.
Throwing in my 2 cents as well - my-list-variable appears to be the only mutable in size list you can work with. From my experience with 10.7, it only grows though.
So if you made a list with 60 values, and you wanted to use my-list-variable again for 55, you'll need to clear out those remaining 5 values and create an if condition when looping over the list to ensure the values are not whatever you set those 5 values to be.
I used lime's answer as a reference (thanks lime!) to populate a list variable from some data in an Excel spreadsheet.
Here's my automation for it:
I tried to match the sql values string (0),(5),(12),... or (0,11),(122,33),(4,51),... or (0,121,12),(31,4,5),(26,227,38),... and so on with the regular expression
\(\s*\d+\s*(\s*,\s*\d+\s*)*\)(\s*,\s*\(\s*\d+\s*(\s*,\s*\d+\s*)*\))*
and it works. But...
How can I ensure that the regex does not match a values string like (0,12),(1,2,3),(56,7) with different number of columns?
Thanks in advance...
As i mentioned in comment to the question, the best way to check if input string is valid: contains the same count of numbers between brackets, is to use client side programm, but not clear SQL.
Implementation:
List<string> s = new List<string>(){
"(0),(5),(12)", "(0,11),(122,33),(4,51)",
"(0,121,12),(31,4,5),(26,227,38)","(0,12),(1,2,3),(56,7)"};
var qry = s.Select(a=>new
{
orig = a,
newst = a.Split(new string[]{"),(", "(", ")"},
StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
})
.Select(a=>new
{
orig = a.orig,
isValid = (a.newst
.Sum(b=>b.Split(new char[]{','},
StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Count()) %
a.newst.Count()) ==0
});
Result:
orig isValid
(0),(5),(12) True
(0,11),(122,33),(4,51) True
(0,121,12),(31,4,5),(26,227,38) True
(0,12),(1,2,3),(56,7) False
Note: The second Select statement gets the modulo of sum of comma instances and the count of items in string array returned by Split function. If the result isn't equal to zero, it means that input string is invalid.
I strongly believe there's a simplest way to achieve that, but - at this moment - i don't know how ;)
:(
Unless you add some more constraints, I don't think you can solve this problem only with regular expressions.
It isn't able to solve all of your string problems, just as it cannot be used to check that the opening and closing of brackets (like "((())()(()(())))") is invalid. That's a more complicated issue.
That's what I learnt in class :P If someone knows a way then that'd be sweet!
I'm sorry, I spent a bit of time looking into how we could turn this string into an array and do more work to it with SQL but built in functionality is lacking and the solution would end up being very hacky.
I'd recommend trying to handle this situation differently as large scale string computation isn't the best way to go if your database is to gradually fill up.
A combination of client and serverside validation can be used to help prevent bad data (like the ones with more numbers) from getting into the database.
If you need to keep those numbers then you could rework your schema to include some metadata which you can use in your queries, like how many numbers there are and whether it all matches nicely. This information can be computed inexpensively from your server and provided to the database.
Good luck!
I'm just looking to be able to sort the results of a BatchedJoinBlock (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh194683.aspx) so that the different results of the different targets stay together. I will explain! Example in some pseudo-code:
Dim batchedJoin = New BatchedJoinBlock(Of String, object)(4)
batchedJoin.Target1.Post("String1Target1")
batchedJoin.Target2.Post(CType(BuildIt, StringBuilder1))
batchedJoin.Target1.Post("String1Target2")
batchedJoin.Target2.Post(CType(BuildIt, StringBuilder2))
Dim results = batchedJoin.Receive()
'This sorts one result...
Dim SortByResult = results.Item1.OrderBy(Function(item) item.ToString, New NaturalStringComparer)
Basically I've got a string and an object, the SortByResult variable above sorts the strings exactly as I'd like them to sort. I'm looking for a way to get the objects that used to be at the same index number in target2 into the same order. e.g. if "String1Target1" changes order I'd like to somehow reliably refer to/pair it together with "StringBuilder1". The actual end result just needs to be that the objects (target2) are sorted in the order that is dictated by the strings being sorted (target1). Something like:
Dim EndResult = results.Item2.OrderBy(strings in target1)
but I'll gladly take an intermediate solution! I've also tried using a dictionary (results.Item2.ToDictionary) with the string as a key (which would also be a fine solution) but it's a bit beyond my ken using lamba expressions in the proper context. I can realistically do this in several steps with a list or something, but I'm trying to get something more efficient/learn something, and it seems like there's a lot of default options with the results of the jointblock that I'm just not experienced enough to use. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
To me, it looks like you don't actually want BatchedJoinBlock, because the two pieces of data always come together. A better option for that would be a BatchBlock of Tuple<string, object>. When you have that, you can then use LINQ directly to sort each batch:
results.OrderBy(Function(tuple) tuple.Item1)
In String Template one can easily get an element of a Java Map within the template.
Is it possible to get the n-th element of an array in a similar way?
According to the String Template Cheat Sheet you can easily get the first or second element:
You can combine operations to say things like first(rest(names)) to get second element.
but it doesn't seem possible to get the n-th element easily. I usually transform my list into a map with list indexes as keys and do something like
map.("25")
Is there some easier/more straightforward way?
Sorry, there is no mechanism to get a[i].
There is no easy way getting n-th element of the list.
In my opinion this indicates that your view and business logic are not separated enough: knowledge of what magic number 25 means is spread in both tiers.
One possible solution might be converting list of values to object which provides meaning to the elements. For example, lets say list of String represents address lines, in which case instead of map.("3") you would write address.street.