Refactoring big if else code

Question

I have this really long if else code

 if (errorNumbers.Length == 6)
      {
        if (errorNumbers.Substring(0,4).Equals("1101") || errorNumbers.Substring(0,4).Equals("2121"))
        {
          retStr = "AutoRepickAfterPickError";
        }
        else if (errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("1301") || errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("2321"))
        {
          retStr = "AutoRepickAfterLAlignError";
        }
        else if (errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("1401") || errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("2221"))
        {
          retStr = "AutoRepickAfterCAlignError";
        }
        else if (errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("1501") || errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4).Equals("2041"))
        {
          retStr = "AutoRepicksAfterManualRecovery";
        }

etc.....

How I can rewrite it to something more nice . Trying to learn here something new , and I am in .net 2.0. Thanks for help.

Answer 1

I´d map the error codes in a dictionary like this:

string errorCode = errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4);
Dictionary<string, string> map = new Dictionary<string,string>();
map.Add("1501", "AutoRepicksAfterManualRecovery");
map.Add("2041", "AutoRepicksAfterManualRecovery");
map.Add("1401", "AutoRepickAfterCAlignError");
map.Add("2221", "AutoRepickAfterCAlignError");
map.Add("1301", "AutoRepickAfterPickError");
map.Add("2121", "AutoRepickAfterPickError");
// etc

if(!map.ContainsKey(errorCode))
 throw new Exception("Invalid error code");

return map[errorCode];

Answer 2

That should be pretty straightforward

if (errorNumbers.Length == 6)
{
    string errNo = errorNumbers.Substring(0, 4);

    switch (errNo)
    {
        case "1101":
        case "2121":
            retStr = "AutoRepickAfterPickError";
            break;
        case "1301":
        case "2321":
            retStr = "AutoRepickAfterLAlignError";
            break;
        case "1401":
        case "2221":
            retStr = "AutoRepickAfterCAlignError";
            break;
        case "1501":
        case "2041":
            retStr = "AutoRepicksAfterManualRecovery";
            break;
    }
}

Also note that unlike in Java, in C# you can compare strings with ==.

"123" == "456" does the same thing as "123".Equals("456").