best way to turn a post title into an URL in c#

Question

I was wondering which is the best way to turn a string (e.g. a post title) into a descriptive URL. the simplest way that comes to mind is by using a regex, such in:

public static Regex regex = new Regex(
      "\\W+",
    RegexOptions.IgnoreCase
    | RegexOptions.CultureInvariant
    | RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace
    | RegexOptions.Compiled
    );

string result = regex.Replace(InputText,"_");

which turns

"my first (yet not so bad) cupcake!! :) .//\."

into

my_first_yet_not_so_bad_cupcake_

then I can strip the last "_" and check it against my db and see if it's yet present. in that case I would add a trailing number to make it unique and recheck.

I could use it in, say

http://myblogsite.xom/posts/my_first_yet_not_so_bad_cupcake

but, is this way safe? should i check other things (like the length of the string) is there any other, better method you prefer? thanks

Answer 1

Here's what I do. regStripNonAlpha removes all the non-alpha or "-" characters. Trim() removes trailing and leading spaces (so we don't end up with dashes on either side). regSpaceToDash converts spaces (or runs of spaces) into a single dash. This has worked well for me.

static Regex regStripNonAlpha = new Regex(@"[^\w\s\-]+", RegexOptions.Compiled);
static Regex regSpaceToDash = new Regex(@"[\s]+", RegexOptions.Compiled);

public static string MakeUrlCompatible(string title)
{
    return regSpaceToDash.Replace(
      regStripNonAlpha.Replace(title, string.Empty).Trim(), "-");
}