substring with linq?

Question

I've got collection of words, and i wanna create collection from this collection limited to 5 chars

Input:

Car
Collection
Limited
stackoverflow

Output:

car
colle
limit
stack

word.Substring(0,5) throws exception (length)

word.Take(10) is not good idea, too...

Any good ideas ??

Answer 1

var words = new [] { "Car", "Collection", "Limited", "stackoverflow" };
IEnumerable<string> cropped = words.Select(word => 
                                    word[0..Math.Min(5, word.Length)]);

Ranges are available in C# 8, otherwise you'll need to do:

IEnumerable<string> cropped = words.Select(word => 
                                    word.Substring(0, Math.Min(5, word.Length)));

Answer 2

LINQ to objects for this scenario? You can do a select as in this:

from w in words
select new
{
  Word = (w.Length > 5) ? w.Substring(0, 5) : w
};

Essentially, ?: gets you around this issue.