C# Char Test (If Char in String Equals a Value)

Benchmark a fast way to test char values. See if a char in a string equals a value.

Char test. Consider a string. We can test it with complex methods with StartsWith or EndsWith. But if we test chars directly, this can be faster.Strings StartsWith, EndsWith Char

Specialized logic. We can also arrange if-tests with chars to avoid repeated work—for example, if we want to test multiple strings starting with a letter, we can test that value once.If

A simple example. Here is a simple example of testing the first letter in a string. Here we see if the string equals the lowercase letter "t."

C# program that uses char test using System; class Program { static void Main() { string value = "test"; // See if first char is the lowercase T. if (value[0] == 't') { Console.WriteLine("First char is t"); } } } Output First char is t

Some optimization. String comparisons can be optimized. We need to test a string thousands to billions of times. We benchmark an alternative way of comparing constant strings.Benchmark

Note: In many programs, there are strings that are immutable and will not change throughout the program.

And: I needed to know if the string matched one of two substrings. The code was critical.

Warning: From a high-level perspective, hard-coding multiple character compares is a poor design.

Code that uses EndsWith, A: C# static bool EndsThreeA(string s) { return s.EndsWith("three", StringComparison.Ordinal); } Code that uses char test, B: C# static bool EndsThreeB(string s) { int len = s.Length; if (len >= 5 && s[len - 5] == 't' && s[len - 4] == 'h' && s[len - 3] == 'r' && s[len - 2] == 'e' && s[len - 1] == 'e') { return true; } else { return false; } } Code that uses StartsWith, A: C# static bool StartsMsA(string s) { return s.StartsWith("http://microsoft.com", StringComparison.Ordinal) || s.StartsWith("http://msdn.microsoft.com", StringComparison.Ordinal); } Code that uses char test, B: C# static bool StartsMsB(string s) { int len = s.Length; if (len > 19 && s[0] == 'h' && s[1] == 't' && s[2] == 't' && s[3] == 'p' && s[4] == ':' && s[5] == '/' && s[6] == '/' && s[7] == 'm') { if (s[8] == 'i' && s[9] == 'c' && s[10] == 'r' && s[11] == 'o' && s[12] == 's' && s[13] == 'o' && s[14] == 'f' && s[15] == 't' && s[16] == '.' && s[17] == 'c' && s[18] == 'o' && s[19] == 'm') { return true; } if (len > 24 && s[8] == 's' && s[9] == 'd' && s[10] == 'n' && s[11] == '.' && s[12] == 'm' && s[13] == 'i' && s[14] == 'c' && s[15] == 'r' && s[16] == 'o' && s[17] == 's' && s[18] == 'o' && s[19] == 'f' && s[20] == 't' && s[21] == '.' && s[22] == 'c' && s[23] == 'o' && s[24] == 'm') { return true; } return false; } return false; }

Benchmark. The "A" methods use StartsWith and EndsWith, and the StringComparison.Ordinal option. The "B" methods individually test chars.

And: We see that the unwound loops, those that test chars individually, are much faster.

For

Benchmark results StartsWith and EndsWith methods: 2176 ms Char testing: 586 ms [faster]

Summary. We tested individual chars in C# strings. By testing chars separately, we also avoid redundant work. This would be an excellent use for a code-generation tool.

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C# Char Test (If Char in String Equals a Value)

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