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StringBuilder.Chars Property

.NET Framework 4

Other Versions

Updated: December 2010

Gets or sets the character at the specified character position in this instance.

Namespace: System.Text
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

C++

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public char this[
	int index
] { get; set; }

Parameters

index: Type: System.Int32
The position of the character.

Property Value

Type: System.Char
The Unicode character at position index.

Exceptions

Exception	Condition
ArgumentOutOfRangeException	index is outside the bounds of this instance while setting a character.
IndexOutOfRangeException	index is outside the bounds of this instance while getting a character.

Remarks

The index parameter is the position of a character within the StringBuilder. The first character in the string is at index 0. The length of a string is the number of characters it contains. The last accessible character of a StringBuilder instance is at index Length - 1.

Chars is the default property of the StringBuilder class. In C#, it is an indexer. This means that individual characters can be retrieved from the Chars property as shown in the following example, which counts the number of alphabetic, white-space, and punctuation characters in a string.

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using System;
using System.Text;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      int nAlphabeticChars = 0;
      int nWhitespace = 0;
      int nPunctuation = 0;  
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("This is a simple sentence.");

      for (int ctr = 0; ctr < sb.Length; ctr++) {
         char ch = sb[ctr];
         if (Char.IsLetter(ch)) { nAlphabeticChars++;  continue; }
         if (Char.IsWhiteSpace(ch)) { nWhitespace++;  continue; }
         if (Char.IsPunctuation(ch)) nPunctuation++;  
      }    

      Console.WriteLine("The sentence '{0}' has:", sb);
      Console.WriteLine("   Alphabetic characters: {0}", nAlphabeticChars);
      Console.WriteLine("   Whitespace characters: {0}", nWhitespace);
      Console.WriteLine("   Punctuation characters: {0}", nPunctuation);
   }
}
// The example displays the following output:
//       The sentence 'This is a simple sentence.' has:
//          Alphabetic characters: 21
//          Whitespace characters: 4
//          Punctuation characters: 1

Version Information

.NET Framework

Supported in: 4, 3.5, 3.0, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0

.NET Framework Client Profile

Supported in: 4, 3.5 SP1

Portable Class Library

Supported in: Portable Class Library

Platforms

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows XP SP2 x64 Edition, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.