Using an alias for Environment.NewLine

Question

Current best practice is to use Environment.NewLine in your code to, well, start a new line. I would like to be able to use an alias or overloaded operator in my code so that it is more concise. Instead of this:

MessageBox.Show("My first line here" + Environment.NewLine + "My second line here");

I would like to have something like this:

MessageBox.Show("My first line here" + NL + "My second line here");

How can I easily set this up one time as an IDE setting, or for a whole project/namespace?

An alias or overloaded operator is that comes to mind, but not sure if there is a good way of doing a global alias that is more concise than Environment.NewLine, and I've never done an overloaded operator before, so not familiar with the ins and outs of that.

Answer 1

Simple shortening method. Pop this class in one of your utility assemblies:

namespace MyCompany
{
    public static class E
    {
        public static readonly string NL = System.Environment.NewLine;
    }
}

then you can happily use it as such:

using MyCompany;

MessageBox.Show("My first line here" + E.NL + "My second line here");

Answer 2

using static System.Environment;

Then you can just use it as NewLine

Answer 3

Might I suggest that you use an extension method instead?

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static string NextLine(this string s, string next)
    {
        return s + Environment.NewLine + next;
    }

    public static string NextLine(this string s)
    {
        // just add a new line with no text
        return s + Environment.NewLine;
    }
}

Usage:

var lines = "My first line here".NextLine("My second line here.")
    .NextLine("third line").NextLine();

Of course, you can call it NL if you wish -- might not be clear, though.

Answer 4

use StringBuilder.AppendLine() in cases with few Environment.NewLine:

var sb = new StringBuilder();
sb.AppendLine("My first line here");
sb.AppendLine("My second line here");
MessageBox.Show(sb.ToString());

Answer 5

Write a class to provide the value of Environment.NewLine as a member, as Jesse C. Slicer has already suggested:

namespace MyNamespace
{
    public static class Env
    {
        public static readonly string NL = Environment.NewLine;
    }
}

Then write the following using directive:

using E = MyNamespace.Env;

You can add this using directive to your default new class template and any other templates you use (new struct, new interface, etc.).

Here's where the new class template is on my machine, as an example to get you started:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Code\1033

Once this is done, you should be able to write E.NL in place of Environment.NewLine everywhere you want.

Answer 6

Alias won't work - you can alias a namespace or a type, but not a property of a type. So this works:

using NL = System.Environment;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var s = NL.NewLine;
    }
}

But this doesn't:

// returns: The type name 'NewLine' does not 
// exist in the type 'System.Environment' error
using NL = System.Environment.NewLine;

Overloaded operator is an interesting idea, but then you'll have to use something other than a String. Usually people create a struct which can take a base string value and then overload the operators. Not worth the pain if all you want to do is replace the Environment.NewLine. You're better off to use a static extension as suggested by others.

Another alternative (if you're dead set on using NL) is to descend all the classes in your framework off of a common parent class which can have the following property:

public class BaseParentClass
{
  public string NL
  {
    get { return System.Environment.NewLine; }
  }
}

Then in the code for all the descendant classes, your code will look simply like:

public class ChildOfBaseParent
{
  public void Show_A_Message()
  {
      MessageBox.Show("My first line here" + NL + "My second line here");
  }
}

Of course if your classes do not descend off of a common parent, you will have to refactor the code base for this piece of convenience. You will need to create a parallel System.Windows.Forms.Form parent for winform classes to have this same behavior.

But definitely worth the pain if you have a lot of string concatenations involving NL...

Answer 7

Adding to @abatishchev response you can do nice things with the StringBuilder Class.

StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();

builder.Append("List:");

builder.AppendLine();

builder.Append("1. Boat")

builder.Append("2. Car").AppendLine();

builder.Replace("Boat", "Jet");