Word to string array in special cases

Unity Engine
1

Hi everyone, I am wondering how to achieve this situation:

string mainWord = "LJERKA";

private void BuildStringArray(string mainWord)
{
     string[] mainWordArray = mainWord.ToCharArray().Select(c => c.ToString()).ToArray();
}

When I run this method I get the expected results, array of strings:
[0] L
[1] J
[2] E
[3] R
[4] K
[5] A

But I want to achieve this:
[0] LJ
[1] E
[2] R
[3] K
[4] A

I need to concatenate some characters into one string, for example:
LJ, NJ and DŽ are all needed to be as one string and not separate item in the array.

Do you have any ideas how to achieve this?

Regards

2

You can treat it a bit like a finite state machine and keep track of your current state for as far as needed. For example, the last character was L or something else.

enum State {L, Other}

State state = State.Other;
List<string> result = new List<string>();
for (int i = 0;i < mainWord.Length();i++)
{
    char ch = mainWord[i];
    if (state == State.L)
    {
        if (ch == 'J')
        {
            result.Add("LJ");
        }
        else
        {
             result.Add("L");
        }
    }
    state = State.Other;
    if (ch == 'L')
    {
        state = State.L;
    }
    else
    {
        result.Add("" + ch);
    }
}
if (state == State.L)
{
    result.Add("L");
}

Pretty long code, I must admit, but it does the job in a single pass over the input string.

3

not sure if it catches all the needed letters in all cases, but seems to work on this one,

using UnityEngine;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public class FindLetters : MonoBehaviour
{

    void Start()
    {
        // add here your special 2 letter words, and . matches for rest of the letters
        string pattern = @"(LJ|NJ|DŽ|.)";
        string input = @"LJERKALJNJDŽALVJGNYJUDRŽ";

        MatchCollection results = Regex.Matches(input, pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);

        for (int i = 0, len = results.Count; i < len; i++)
        {
            Debug.LogFormat("index:{0} letter:{1}", i, results[i].ToString());
        }
    }
}

*credits: https://regex101.com + google : )

4

Yes, ok, a regular expression is a better way to go.

5

Hi, thank you for sharing your idea, I took it and improved it a bit. Working like a charm:

private List<string> WordToCroatianStringArray(string mainWord)
    {
        State state = State.Other;
        List<string> result = new List<string>();

        for (int i = 0; i < mainWord.Length; i++)
        {
            bool doubleCharAdded = false;
            char ch = mainWord[i];
            if (state == State.L)
            {
                if (ch == 'j')
                {
                    result.Add("lj");
                    doubleCharAdded = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    result.Add("l");
                }
            }
            else if(state == State.N)
            {
                if (ch == 'j')
                {
                    result.Add("nj");
                    doubleCharAdded = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    result.Add("n");
                }
            }
            else if (state == State.D)
            {
                if (ch == 'ž')
                {
                    result.Add("dž");
                    doubleCharAdded = true;
                }
                else
                {
                    result.Add("d");
                }
            }

            state = State.Other;

            if (ch == 'l')
            {
                state = State.L;
            }
            else if (ch == 'n')
            {
                state = State.N;
            }
            else if (ch == 'd')
            {
                state = State.D;
            }
            else
            {
                if(!doubleCharAdded)
                    result.Add("" + ch);
            }
        }

        // add last letter if it is one of the specials
        if (state == State.L)
        {
            result.Add("l");
        }
        if (state == State.N)
        {
            result.Add("n");
        }
        if (state == State.D)
        {
            result.Add("d");
        }

        return result;
    }

Tested with this:

List<string> rest = WordToCroatianStringArray("ljekarna");
        foreach(string r in rest)
        {
            Debug.Log(r);
        }
        Debug.Log("--------------------");
        List<string> rest2 = WordToCroatianStringArray("poboljšanje");
        foreach (string r in rest2)
        {
            Debug.Log(r);
        }
        Debug.Log("--------------------");
        List<string> rest3 = WordToCroatianStringArray("džentlmen");
        foreach (string r in rest3)
        {
            Debug.Log(r);
        }
        Debug.Log("--------------------");
        List<string> rest4 = WordToCroatianStringArray("jednadžba");
        foreach (string r in rest4)
        {
            Debug.Log(r);
        }
6

I will try now with regex :slight_smile:

7

Regex working like a charm too :slight_smile: