C# 0 The Complete Reference

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Formatting is described in detail in Chapter 22.

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22

Strings and Formatting

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his chapter examines the 

String

 class, which underlies C#’s 

string

 type. As all 

programmers know, string handling is a part of almost any program. For this reason, 

the

String

 class defines an extensive set of methods, properties, and fields that give 

you detailed control over the construction and manipulation of strings. Closely related to 

string handling is the formatting of data into its human-readable form. Using the formatting 

subsystem, you can format the C# numeric types, date and time, and enumerations.

Strings in C#

An overview of C#’s string handling was presented in Chapter 7, and that discussion is not 

repeated here. However, it is worthwhile to review how strings are implemented in C# before 

examining the 

String

 class.

In all computer languages, a 

string

 is a sequence of characters, but precisely how such a 

sequence is implemented varies from language to language. In some computer languages, 

such as C++, strings are arrays of characters, but this is not the case with C#. Instead, C# 

strings are objects of the built-in