String To Url

This NuGet library contains an extension method to turn any string into a string which can be used in an URL. A practical example is how I use this on Musicstax where I take track, artist or playlist names and turn them into a URL.

Example:

Input: Charlie Puth That's Hilarious

Output: charlie-puth-thats-hilarious

Why I have written this

This is a common feature I use for generating URLs from strings which could be of use for others. Replacing diacritics, cleaning out non alphanumeric characters and properly formatting a string into a proper URL/path can be fiddly. This library helps solve that by making it as easy as calling an extension method to string.

How to use / what this does

Once you have installed the StringToUrl nuget package to your solution you will be able to use this.

There are two ways to use StringToUrl.

• With the default options
• By overriding options with a UrlOptions object

With default options

On any string you can do:

string.ConvertToUrl()

This will:

• Replace diacritics. Eg: ā is turned into a
• Remove any non alphanumeric characters
• Replace any spaces with -
• Remove any instances where words were stripped in such a way that one or more dashes are next to each other and replace them with just one
• Return the generated URL path

Example:

var name = "Charlie Puth That's Hilarious";

name.ConvertToUrl(); // returns charlie-puth-thats-hilarious

Overriding default options

You can pass through a UrlOptions object to string.ConvertToUrl() to override some the default options.

Option	Description
SpaceReplacementCharacter string	By default spaces are replaced with a dash. You can override this with any value.
Case StringCase enum	By default the returned URL is converted to lowercase. You can override this with: StringCase.Upper - returns the string in all uppercase StringCase.Unchanged - returns the string without any case change StringCase.Lower - default - returns the string in all lowercase
MaxLength int	By default the entire input string is converted and then returned. You can choose to set a max character length by setting this. Note: if the ending character is a SpaceReplacementCharacter this is removed so that the returned URL does not end in a dash for example.
Append string	Add to the end of the generated URL path.
Prepend string	Add to the start of the generated URL path. Eg: your domain.

Any of these options can be set without others being set.

To use this:

var name = "Charlie Puth That's Hilarious";

var options = new UrlOptions {
    SpaceReplacementCharacter = "_",
    Case = StringCase.UPPER,
    MaxLength = 25,
    Prepend = "https://google.co.nz/".
    Append = "/index"
};

name.ConvertToUrl(options); // returns https://google.co.nz/CHARLIE_PUTH_THATS_HILARI/index

As noted, you do not need to set all options:

var name = "Charlie Puth That's Hilarious";

var options = new UrlOptions {
    MaxLength = 25
};

name.ConvertToUrl(options); // returns charlie-puth-thats-hilari