How to determine if a string is a valid variable name?

Question

I'm looking for a quick way (in C#) to determine if a string is a valid variable name. My first intuition is to whip up some regex to do it, but I'm wondering if there's a better way to do it. Like maybe some kind of a secret method hidden deep somewhere called IsThisAValidVariableName(string name), or some other slick way to do it that is not prone to errors that might arise due to lack of regex prowess.

Answer 1

Try this:

// using System.CodeDom.Compiler; CodeDomProvider provider = CodeDomProvider.CreateProvider("C#"); if (provider.IsValidIdentifier (YOUR_VARIABLE_NAME)) {       // Valid } else {       // Not valid } 

Answer 2

public static bool IsIdentifier(string text) {     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))         return false;     if (!char.IsLetter(text[0]) && text[0] != '_')         return false;     for (int ix = 1; ix < text.Length; ++ix)         if (!char.IsLetterOrDigit(text[ix]) && text[ix] != '_')            return false;     return true; }