Appending values if strings are not null or empty

Question

Hi Folks,

I have three values for example string 1 , string 2,string 3
Now if string 1="uu",string 2="pp",string 3= "cc"
I want to concatenate something like this uu/pp(cc)
Now the problem is if string 1 is empty or null then I don't want to append / before string 2,similarly if string 3 is empty I don't want to concatenate parenthesis around it .

For example if string 1 and string 3 are empty then my output should be pp
I want to achieve this as a method as I have to repeat this for multiple inputs

Please suggest

Answer 1

Honestly, this is fundamental programming logic. You've already figured the hard part which is the use case. From there just write the code just like the use case reads.

    public static string FormatString(string string1, string string2, string string3)
    {
        string results = string.Empty;

        if(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(string1))
        {
            results += $"{string1}/";
        }

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(string2))
        {
            results += $"{string2}";
        }

        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(string3))
        {
            results += $"({string3})";
        }

        return results;
    }

Answer 2

@AgaveJoe solution is best for static value count e.g. Now if string 1="uu",string 2="pp",string 3= "cc"

If by chance there can be a variable amount of strings consider

private string ConcatenateValues(params string[] values)  
{  
    string ReplaceLastOccurrence(string source, string find, string replace)  
    {  
        int index = source.LastIndexOf(find, StringComparison.Ordinal);  
        return index == -1 ? source : source.Remove(index, find.Length).Insert(index, replace);  
    }  
  
    var result = string.Join("/", values.Where(x => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(x)).Select(x => $"{x}")) + ")";  
    return result.Length == 1 && result == ")" ? "" : ReplaceLastOccurrence(result, "/", "(");  
}  

Usage

Console.WriteLine(ConcatenateValues("aa", "bb", "cc", "dd", "pp"));  
Console.WriteLine(ConcatenateValues("aa", "", "cc"));  
Console.WriteLine(ConcatenateValues("aa", "bb", ""));  
Console.WriteLine(ConcatenateValues("", "bb", "cc"));  
Console.WriteLine(ConcatenateValues("aa", "bb", "cc"));  
Console.WriteLine($"'{ConcatenateValues()}'");  

Results

aa/bb/cc/dd(pp)  
aa(cc)  
aa(bb)  
bb(cc)  
aa/bb(cc)  
''