How can I delete all non-alphanumeric characters except the dash from a string?

Problem

How can I remove all non-alphanumeric characters except dashes and spaces from a string?

Asked by Luke101

Solution #1

Replace [^a-zA-Z0-9 -] with an empty string.

Regex rgx = new Regex("[^a-zA-Z0-9 -]");
str = rgx.Replace(str, "");

Answered by Amarghosh

Solution #2

I could have used RegEx; they can be a beautiful solution, but they can also be inefficient. Here’s one possibility.

char[] arr = str.ToCharArray();

arr = Array.FindAll<char>(arr, (c => (char.IsLetterOrDigit(c) 
                                  || char.IsWhiteSpace(c) 
                                  || c == '-')));
str = new string(arr);

When working with the compact framework (which lacks FindAll),

Replace FindAll with1

char[] arr = str.Where(c => (char.IsLetterOrDigit(c) || 
                             char.IsWhiteSpace(c) || 
                             c == '-')).ToArray(); 

str = new string(arr);

ShawnFeatherly has one comment.

Answered by ata

Solution #3

You can try:

string s1 = Regex.Replace(s, "[^A-Za-z0-9 -]", "");

Where s denotes the length of your string.

Answered by josephj1989

Solution #4

Using System.Linq

string withOutSpecialCharacters = new string(stringWithSpecialCharacters.Where(c =>char.IsLetterOrDigit(c) || char.IsWhiteSpace(c) || c == '-').ToArray());

Answered by Zain Ali

Solution #5

[ws-]* [ws-]* [ws-]* [ws-]* [ws-]* [ws-]

Because there can be a tab in the text, s is preferable to space ().

Answered by True Soft

Post is based on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3210393/how-do-i-remove-all-non-alphanumeric-characters-from-a-string-except-dash