Is there an equivalent to 'sscanf()' in .NET?

Question

The .NET Framework gives us the Format method:

string s = string.Format("This {0} very {1}.", "is", "funny");
// s is now: "This is very funny."

I would like an "Unformat" function, something like:

object[] params = string.Unformat("This {0} very {1}.", "This is very funny.");
// params is now: ["is", "funny"]

I know something similar exists in the ANSI-C library (printf vs scanf).

The question: is there something similiar in C#?

Update: Capturing groups with regular expressions are not the solution I need. They are also one way. I'm looking for a system that can work both ways in a single format. It's OK to give up some functionality (like types and formatting info).

Answer 1

There's no such method, probably because of problems resolving ambiguities:

string.Unformat("This {0} very {1}.", "This is very very funny.")
// are the parameters equal to "is" and "very funny", or "is very" and "funny"?

Regular expression capturing groups are made for this problem; you may want to look into them.

Answer 2

Regex with grouping?

/This (.*?) very (.*?)./

Answer 3

If anyone's interested, I've just posted a scanf() replacement for .NET. If regular expressions don't quite cut it for you, my code follows the scanf() format string quite closely.

You can see and download the code I wrote at http://www.blackbeltcoder.com/Articles/strings/a-sscanf-replacement-for-net.

Answer 4

You could do string[] parts = string.Split(' '), and then extract by the index position parts[1] and parts [3] in your example.

Answer 5

Yep. These are called "regular expressions". The one that will do the thing is

This (?<M0>.+) very (?<M1>.+)\.