Getting an extra blank item when splitting a string

Question

I'm splitting a string with "\0" separators and I'm getting an extra blank trailing item and I'm not sure why. There should be 5 parameters, each terminated by a "\0". Here is the string:

Splash\0\0Message here.\01Back\0\0

here is my code:

var paramList = new List<string>(parameters.Split("\0".ToCharArray()));

here is why I'm getting:

[0] = "Splash"
[1] = ""
[2] = "Message here."
[3] = "1Back"
[4] = ""
[5] = ""

I can't remove the empty parameters when splitting since their position is important.

The string has 5 parameters/separators, but is returning 6 elements. Position is important because [0] is always the title, [1] the subtitle, [2] the message, [3] button 1, [4] button 2.

It's easy enough for me to just ignore the final item, but I'd like to know why it's there and what I'm doing wrong.

Answer 1

Use StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries to remove empty entries

Replace

var paramList = new List<string>(parameters.Split("\0".ToCharArray()));

with

var paramList = new List<string>(parameters.Split("\0".ToCharArray(), StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries));

To skip last empty item only, use

var parameters = "Splash\0\0Message here.\01Back\0\0";
var splitted = parameters.Split("\0".ToCharArray());
var paramList = new List<string>(splitted.Take(splitted.Length - 1));