Guy_1463
0
I've just had to write a string reverse function in C# 2.0 (i.e. LINQ not available) and came up with this:
public string Reverse(string text)
{
char[] cArray = text.ToCharArray();
string reverse = String.Empty;
for (int i = cArray.Length - 1; i > -1; i--)
{
reverse += cArray[i];
}
return reverse;
}
Personally I'm not crazy about the function and am convinced that there's a better way to do it. Is there?
public static string Reverse( string s )
{
char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(charArray);
return new string(charArray);
}
This is turning out to be a surprisingly tricky question.
I would recommend using Array.Reverse for most cases as it is coded natively and it is very simple to maintain and understand.
It seems to outperform StringBuilder in all the cases I tested.
public string Reverse(string text)
{
if (text == null) return null;
// this was posted by petebob as well
char[] array = text.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(array);
return new String(array);
}
There is a second approach that can be faster for certain string lengths which uses Xor.
public static string ReverseXor(string s)
{
if (s == null) return null;
char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
int len = s.Length - 1;
for (int i = 0; i < len; i++, len--)
{
charArray[i] ^= charArray[len];
charArray[len] ^= charArray[i];
charArray[i] ^= charArray[len];
}
return new string(charArray);
}
Note If you want to support the full Unicode UTF16 charset read this. And use the implementation there instead. It can be further optimized by using one of the above algorithms and running through the string to clean it up after the chars are reversed.
Here is a performance comparison between the StringBuilder, Array.Reverse and Xor method.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Diagnostics;
namespace ConsoleApplication4
{
class Program
{
delegate string StringDelegate(string s);
static void Benchmark(string description, StringDelegate d, int times, string text)
{
Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();
sw.Start();
for (int j = 0; j < times; j++)
{
d(text);
}
sw.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("{0} Ticks {1} : called {2} times.", sw.ElapsedTicks, description, times);
}
public static string ReverseXor(string s)
{
char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
int len = s.Length - 1;
for (int i = 0; i < len; i++, len--)
{
charArray[i] ^= charArray[len];
charArray[len] ^= charArray[i];
charArray[i] ^= charArray[len];
}
return new string(charArray);
}
public static string ReverseSB(string text)
{
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(text.Length);
for (int i = text.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
builder.Append(text[i]);
}
return builder.ToString();
}
public static string ReverseArray(string text)
{
char[] array = text.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(array);
return (new string(array));
}
public static string StringOfLength(int length)
{
Random random = new Random();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++)
{
sb.Append(Convert.ToChar(Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(26 * random.NextDouble() + 65))));
}
return sb.ToString();
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
int[] lengths = new int[] {1,10,15,25,50,75,100,1000,100000};
foreach (int l in lengths)
{
int iterations = 10000;
string text = StringOfLength(l);
Benchmark(String.Format("String Builder (Length: {0})", l), ReverseSB, iterations, text);
Benchmark(String.Format("Array.Reverse (Length: {0})", l), ReverseArray, iterations, text);
Benchmark(String.Format("Xor (Length: {0})", l), ReverseXor, iterations, text);
Console.WriteLine();
}
Console.Read();
}
}
}
Here are the results:
26251 Ticks String Builder (Length: 1) : called 10000 times.
33373 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 1) : called 10000 times.
20162 Ticks Xor (Length: 1) : called 10000 times.
51321 Ticks String Builder (Length: 10) : called 10000 times.
37105 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 10) : called 10000 times.
23974 Ticks Xor (Length: 10) : called 10000 times.
66570 Ticks String Builder (Length: 15) : called 10000 times.
26027 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 15) : called 10000 times.
24017 Ticks Xor (Length: 15) : called 10000 times.
101609 Ticks String Builder (Length: 25) : called 10000 times.
28472 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 25) : called 10000 times.
35355 Ticks Xor (Length: 25) : called 10000 times.
161601 Ticks String Builder (Length: 50) : called 10000 times.
35839 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 50) : called 10000 times.
51185 Ticks Xor (Length: 50) : called 10000 times.
230898 Ticks String Builder (Length: 75) : called 10000 times.
40628 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 75) : called 10000 times.
78906 Ticks Xor (Length: 75) : called 10000 times.
312017 Ticks String Builder (Length: 100) : called 10000 times.
52225 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 100) : called 10000 times.
110195 Ticks Xor (Length: 100) : called 10000 times.
2970691 Ticks String Builder (Length: 1000) : called 10000 times.
292094 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 1000) : called 10000 times.
846585 Ticks Xor (Length: 1000) : called 10000 times.
305564115 Ticks String Builder (Length: 100000) : called 10000 times.
74884495 Ticks Array.Reverse (Length: 100000) : called 10000 times.
125409674 Ticks Xor (Length: 100000) : called 10000 times.
It seems that Xor can be faster for short strings.
If the string contains Unicode data (strictly speaking, non-BMP characters) the other methods that have been posted will corrupt it, because you cannot swap the order of high and low surrogate code units when reversing the string. (More information about this can be found on my blog.)
The following code sample will correctly reverse a string that contains non-BMP characters, e.g., "\U00010380\U00010381" (Ugaritic Letter Alpa, Ugaritic Letter Beta).
public static string Reverse(this string input)
{
if (input == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException("input");
// allocate a buffer to hold the output
char[] output = new char[input.Length];
for (int outputIndex = 0, inputIndex = input.Length - 1; outputIndex < input.Length; outputIndex++, inputIndex--)
{
// check for surrogate pair
if (input[inputIndex] >= 0xDC00 && input[inputIndex] <= 0xDFFF &&
inputIndex > 0 && input[inputIndex - 1] >= 0xD800 && input[inputIndex - 1] <= 0xDBFF)
{
// preserve the order of the surrogate pair code units
output[outputIndex + 1] = input[inputIndex];
output[outputIndex] = input[inputIndex - 1];
outputIndex++;
inputIndex--;
}
else
{
output[outputIndex] = input[inputIndex];
}
}
return new string(output);
}
Have a look at the wikipedia entry here. They implement the String.Reverse extension method. This allows you to write code like this:
string s = "olleh";
s.Reverse();
They also use the ToCharArray/Reverse combination that other answers to this question suggest. The source code looks like this:
public static string Reverse(this string input)
{
char[] chars = input.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(chars);
return new String(chars);
}
Starting with .NET Core 2.1 there is a new way to reverse a string using the string.Create method.
Note that this solution does not handle Unicode combining characters etc. correctly, as "Les Mise\u0301rables" would be converted to "selbarésiM seL". See the other answers for a better solution.
public static string Reverse(string input)
{
return string.Create<string>(input.Length, input, (chars, state) =>
{
state.AsSpan().CopyTo(chars);
chars.Reverse();
});
}
This essentially copies the characters of input to a new string and reverses the new string in-place.
string.Create useful?When we create a string from an existing array, a new internal array is allocated and the values are copied. Otherwise, it would be possible to mutate a string after its creation (in a safe environment). That is, in the following snippet we have to allocate an array of length 10 twice, one as the buffer and one as the string's internal array.
var chars = new char[10];
// set array values
var str = new string(chars);
string.Create essentially allows us to manipulate the internal array during creation time of the string. This is, we do not need a buffer anymore and can therefore avoid allocating that one char array.
Steve Gordon has written about it in more detail here. There is also an article on MSDN.
string.Create?public static string Create<TState>(int length, TState state, SpanAction<char, TState> action);
The method takes three parameters:
char array of the new string and the second is the data (state) you passed to string.Create.Inside the delegate we can specify how the new string is created from the data. In our case, we just copy the characters of the input string to the Span used by the new string. Then we reverse the Span and hence the whole string is reversed.
To compare my proposed way of reversing a string with the accepted answer, I have written two benchmarks using BenchmarkDotNet.
public class StringExtensions
{
public static string ReverseWithArray(string input)
{
var charArray = input.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(charArray);
return new string(charArray);
}
public static string ReverseWithStringCreate(string input)
{
return string.Create(input.Length, input, (chars, state) =>
{
state.AsSpan().CopyTo(chars);
chars.Reverse();
});
}
}
[MemoryDiagnoser]
public class StringReverseBenchmarks
{
private string input;
[Params(10, 100, 1000)]
public int InputLength { get; set; }
[GlobalSetup]
public void SetInput()
{
// Creates a random string of the given length
this.input = RandomStringGenerator.GetString(InputLength);
}
[Benchmark(Baseline = true)]
public string WithReverseArray() => StringExtensions.ReverseWithArray(input);
[Benchmark]
public string WithStringCreate() => StringExtensions.ReverseWithStringCreate(input);
}
Here are the results on my machine:
| Method | InputLength | Mean | Error | StdDev | Gen 0 | Allocated |
| ---------------- | ----------- | -----------: | ---------: | --------: | -----: | --------: |
| WithReverseArray | 10 | 45.464 ns | 0.4836 ns | 0.4524 ns | 0.0610 | 96 B |
| WithStringCreate | 10 | 39.749 ns | 0.3206 ns | 0.2842 ns | 0.0305 | 48 B |
| | | | | | | |
| WithReverseArray | 100 | 175.162 ns | 2.8766 ns | 2.2458 ns | 0.2897 | 456 B |
| WithStringCreate | 100 | 125.284 ns | 2.4657 ns | 2.0590 ns | 0.1473 | 232 B |
| | | | | | | |
| WithReverseArray | 1000 | 1,523.544 ns | 9.8808 ns | 8.7591 ns | 2.5768 | 4056 B |
| WithStringCreate | 1000 | 1,078.957 ns | 10.2948 ns | 9.6298 ns | 1.2894 | 2032 B |
As you can see, with ReverseWithStringCreate we allocate only half of the memory used by the ReverseWithArray method.
If you want to play a really dangerous game, then this is by far the fastest way there is (around four times faster than the Array.Reverse method). It's an in-place reverse using pointers.
Note that I really do not recommend this for any use, ever (have a look here for some reasons why you should not use this method), but it's just interesting to see that it can be done, and that strings aren't really immutable once you turn on unsafe code.
public static unsafe string Reverse(string text)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
{
return text;
}
fixed (char* pText = text)
{
char* pStart = pText;
char* pEnd = pText + text.Length - 1;
for (int i = text.Length / 2; i >= 0; i--)
{
char temp = *pStart;
*pStart++ = *pEnd;
*pEnd-- = temp;
}
return text;
}
}
Firstly you don't need to call ToCharArray as a string can already be indexed as a char array, so this will save you an allocation.
The next optimisation is to use a StringBuilder to prevent unnecessary allocations (as strings are immutable, concatenating them makes a copy of the string each time). To further optimise this we pre-set the length of the StringBuilder so it won't need to expand its buffer.
public string Reverse(string text)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
{
return text;
}
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(text.Length);
for (int i = text.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
builder.Append(text[i]);
}
return builder.ToString();
}
Edit: Performance Data
I tested this function and the function using Array.Reverse with the following simple program, where Reverse1 is one function and Reverse2 is the other:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var text = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
// pre-jit
text = Reverse1(text);
text = Reverse2(text);
// test
var timer1 = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (var i = 0; i < 10000000; i++)
{
text = Reverse1(text);
}
timer1.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("First: {0}", timer1.ElapsedMilliseconds);
var timer2 = Stopwatch.StartNew();
for (var i = 0; i < 10000000; i++)
{
text = Reverse2(text);
}
timer2.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Second: {0}", timer2.ElapsedMilliseconds);
Console.ReadLine();
}
It turns out that for short strings the Array.Reverse method is around twice as quick as the one above, and for longer strings the difference is even more pronounced. So given that the Array.Reverse method is both simpler and faster I'd recommend you use that rather than this one. I leave this one up here just to show that it isn't the way you should do it (much to my surprise!)
Try using Array.Reverse
public string Reverse(string str)
{
char[] array = str.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(array);
return new string(array);
}
"Best" can depend on many things, but here are few more short alternatives ordered from fast to slow:
string s = "z̽a̎l͘g̈o̓", pattern = @"(?s).(?<=(?:.(?=.*$(?<=((\P{M}\p{C}?\p{M}*)\1?))))*)";
string s1 = string.Concat(s.Reverse()); // "☐☐̓ög͘l̎a̽z"
string s2 = Microsoft.VisualBasic.Strings.StrReverse(s); // "o̓g̈l͘a̎̽z"
string s3 = string.Concat(StringInfo.ParseCombiningCharacters(s).Reverse()
.Select(i => StringInfo.GetNextTextElement(s, i))); // "o̓g̈l͘a̎z̽"
string s4 = Regex.Replace(s, pattern, "$2").Remove(s.Length); // "o̓g̈l͘a̎z̽"
Sorry for long post, but this might be interesting
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Text;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
public static string ReverseUsingArrayClass(string text)
{
char[] chars = text.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(chars);
return new string(chars);
}
public static string ReverseUsingCharacterBuffer(string text)
{
char[] charArray = new char[text.Length];
int inputStrLength = text.Length - 1;
for (int idx = 0; idx <= inputStrLength; idx++)
{
charArray[idx] = text[inputStrLength - idx];
}
return new string(charArray);
}
public static string ReverseUsingStringBuilder(string text)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(text))
{
return text;
}
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(text.Length);
for (int i = text.Length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
builder.Append(text[i]);
}
return builder.ToString();
}
private static string ReverseUsingStack(string input)
{
Stack<char> resultStack = new Stack<char>();
foreach (char c in input)
{
resultStack.Push(c);
}
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
while (resultStack.Count > 0)
{
sb.Append(resultStack.Pop());
}
return sb.ToString();
}
public static string ReverseUsingXOR(string text)
{
char[] charArray = text.ToCharArray();
int length = text.Length - 1;
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++, length--)
{
charArray[i] ^= charArray[length];
charArray[length] ^= charArray[i];
charArray[i] ^= charArray[length];
}
return new string(charArray);
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string testString = string.Join(";", new string[] {
new string('a', 100),
new string('b', 101),
new string('c', 102),
new string('d', 103),
});
int cycleCount = 100000;
Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
stopwatch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < cycleCount; i++)
{
ReverseUsingCharacterBuffer(testString);
}
stopwatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("ReverseUsingCharacterBuffer: " + stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
stopwatch.Reset();
stopwatch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < cycleCount; i++)
{
ReverseUsingArrayClass(testString);
}
stopwatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("ReverseUsingArrayClass: " + stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
stopwatch.Reset();
stopwatch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < cycleCount; i++)
{
ReverseUsingStringBuilder(testString);
}
stopwatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("ReverseUsingStringBuilder: " + stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
stopwatch.Reset();
stopwatch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < cycleCount; i++)
{
ReverseUsingStack(testString);
}
stopwatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("ReverseUsingStack: " + stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
stopwatch.Reset();
stopwatch.Start();
for (int i = 0; i < cycleCount; i++)
{
ReverseUsingXOR(testString);
}
stopwatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("ReverseUsingXOR: " + stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds + "ms");
}
}
}
Results:
Had to submit a recursive example:
private static string Reverse(string str)
{
if (str.IsNullOrEmpty(str) || str.Length == 1)
return str;
else
return str[str.Length - 1] + Reverse(str.Substring(0, str.Length - 1));
}
How about:
private string Reverse(string stringToReverse)
{
char[] rev = stringToReverse.Reverse().ToArray();
return new string(rev);
}
Since I like a couple of the answers - one for using string.Create and therefore high performance and low allocation and another for correctness - using the StringInfo class, I decided a combined approach is needed. This is the ultimate string reversal method :)
private static string ReverseString(string str)
{
return string.Create(str.Length, str, (chars, state) =>
{
var enumerator = StringInfo.GetTextElementEnumerator(state);
var position = state.Length;
while (enumerator.MoveNext())
{
var cluster = ((string)enumerator.Current).AsSpan();
cluster.CopyTo(chars.Slice(position - cluster.Length));
position -= cluster.Length;
}
});
}
There's an even better way using a method of the StringInfo class which skips a lot of string allocations by the Enumerator by returning just the indexes.
private static string ReverseString(string str)
{
return string.Create(str.Length, str, (chars, state) =>
{
var position = 0;
var indexes = StringInfo.ParseCombiningCharacters(state); // skips string creation
var stateSpan = state.AsSpan();
for (int len = indexes.Length, i = len - 1; i >= 0; i--)
{
var index = indexes[i];
var spanLength = i == len - 1 ? state.Length - index : indexes[i + 1] - index;
stateSpan.Slice(index, spanLength).CopyTo(chars.Slice(position));
position += spanLength;
}
});
}
Some benchmarks compared to the LINQ solution:
String length 20:
LINQ Mean: 2,355.5 ns Allocated: 1440 B
string.Create Mean: 851.0 ns Allocated: 720 B
string.Create with indexes Mean: 466.4 ns Allocated: 168 B
String length 450:
LINQ Mean: 34.33 us Allocated: 22.98 KB
string.Create Mean: 19.13 us Allocated: 14.98 KB
string.Create with indexes Mean: 10.32 us Allocated: 2.69 KB
"Better way" depends on what is more important to you in your situation, performance, elegance, maintainability etc.
Anyway, here's an approach using Array.Reverse:
string inputString="The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.";
char[] charArray = inputString.ToCharArray();
Array.Reverse(charArray);
string reversed = new string(charArray);
If someone asks about string reverse, the intension could be to find out whether you know any bitwise operation like XOR. In C# you have Array.Reverse function, however, you can do using simple XOR operation in few lines of code(minimal)
public static string MyReverse(string s)
{
char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
int bgn = -1;
int end = s.Length;
while(++bgn < --end)
{
charArray[bgn] ^= charArray[end];
charArray[end] ^= charArray[bgn];
charArray[bgn] ^= charArray[end];
}
return new string(charArray);
}
here is a unicode safe version of the function, written as an extension that will safely handle unicode. It is close to the marked complete answer, but will not throw exceptions for "Invalid high surrogate character".
public static class StringExtensions
{
public static string Reverse(this string s)
{
var info = new StringInfo(s);
var charArray = new char[s.Length];
var teIndices = StringInfo.ParseCombiningCharacters(s).Reverse();
int j = 0;
foreach(var i in teIndices)
{
if (char.IsHighSurrogate(s[i]))
{
charArray[j] = s[i];
j++;
charArray[j] = s[i+1];
}
else
{
charArray[j] = s[i];
}
j++;
}
return new string(charArray);
}
}
Using LINQ's Aggregate function
string s = "Karthik U";
s = s.Aggregate(new StringBuilder(), (o, p) => o.Insert(0, p)).ToString();
Handles all type of unicode characters
using System.Globalization;
public static string ReverseString(this string content) {
var textElementEnumerator = StringInfo.GetTextElementEnumerator(content);
var SbBuilder = new StringBuilder(content.Length);
while (textElementEnumerator.MoveNext()) {
SbBuilder.Insert(0, textElementEnumerator.GetTextElement());
}
return SbBuilder.ToString();
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string str = "";
string reverse = "";
Console.WriteLine("Enter the value to reverse");
str = Console.ReadLine();
int length = 0;
length = str.Length - 1;
while(length >= 0)
{
reverse = reverse + str[length];
length--;
}
Console.Write("Reverse string is {0}", reverse);
Console.ReadKey();
}
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Program
{
public static string ReverseString(string str)
{
int totalLength = str.Length;
int iCount = 0;
string strRev = string.Empty;
iCount = totalLength;
while (iCount != 0)
{
iCount--;
strRev += str[iCount];
}
return strRev;
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string str = "Punit Pandya";
string strResult = ReverseString(str);
Console.WriteLine(strResult);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
We can use two pointers one pointing to the start of the string and another to the end of the string. Then swap both ith and jth values each time and increment ith pointer +1 and decrement jth pointer -1.
string s = Console.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine(s + "\n");
char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
int i = 0, j = s.Length - 1;
while (i < j) {
char temp = charArray[i];
charArray[i] = charArray[j];
charArray[j] = temp;
i++; j--;
}
string ans = new string(charArray);
Console.WriteLine(ans + "\n");
// Input: hello
// Output: olleh
There are a few correct answers where StringInfo.GetTextElementEnumerator() is being used. Kudos to you!
Now, let's find the most efficient way to use this method. First, most answers involve calling Reverse() and ToArray() which is a big no-no on hot paths. For optimal performance, we want to avoid allocating garbage. E.g. temporary strings, allocators, arrays etc.
LINQ enumerators, no arrays.using System.Globalization;
public static class StringExtensions
{
public static string AsReversed(this string s)
{
return string.Create(s.Length, s, (chars, state) =>
{
int i = 0;
var enumerator = StringInfo.GetTextElementEnumerator(s);
while (enumerator.MoveNext())
{
var element = enumerator.GetTextElement();
i += element.Length;
element.CopyTo(chars[^i..]);
}
});
}
}
Note that the GetTextElementEnumerator() API contains a bug in .NET Core 3.1 and earlier. Make sure to run .NET 5 or later! Finally, make sure to check out issue #19423 where API improvements are being discussed.
This is the code used for reverse string
public Static void main(){
string text = "Test Text";
Console.Writeline(RevestString(text))
}
public Static string RevestString(string text){
char[] textToChar = text.ToCharArray();
string result= string.Empty;
int length = textToChar .Length;
for (int i = length; i > 0; --i)
result += textToChar[i - 1];
return result;
}
It's very simple
static void Reverse()
{
string str = "PankajRawat";
var arr = str.ToCharArray();
for (int i = str.Length-1; i >= 0; i--)
{
Console.Write(arr[i]);
}
}
public string rev(string str)
{
if (str.Length <= 0)
return string.Empty;
else
return str[str.Length-1]+ rev(str.Substring(0,str.Length-1));
}