Splitting a string into chunks of a certain size

Question

Suppose I had a string:

string str = \"1111222233334444\"; 

How can I break this string into chunks of some size?

e.g., breaking t

Answer 1

I can't remember who gave me this, but it works great. I speed tested a number of ways to break Enumerable types into groups. The usage would just be like this...

List Divided = Source3.Chunk(24).Select(Piece => string.Concat(Piece)).ToList();

The extention code would look like this...

#region Chunk Logic
private class ChunkedEnumerable : IEnumerable
{
    class ChildEnumerator : IEnumerator
    {
        ChunkedEnumerable parent;
        int position;
        bool done = false;
        T current;


        public ChildEnumerator(ChunkedEnumerable parent)
        {
            this.parent = parent;
            position = -1;
            parent.wrapper.AddRef();
        }

        public T Current
        {
            get
            {
                if (position == -1 || done)
                {
                    throw new InvalidOperationException();
                }
                return current;

            }
        }

        public void Dispose()
        {
            if (!done)
            {
                done = true;
                parent.wrapper.RemoveRef();
            }
        }

        object System.Collections.IEnumerator.Current
        {
            get { return Current; }
        }

        public bool MoveNext()
        {
            position++;

            if (position + 1 > parent.chunkSize)
            {
                done = true;
            }

            if (!done)
            {
                done = !parent.wrapper.Get(position + parent.start, out current);
            }

            return !done;

        }

        public void Reset()
        {
            // per http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.collections.ienumerator.reset.aspx
            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }
    }

    EnumeratorWrapper wrapper;
    int chunkSize;
    int start;

    public ChunkedEnumerable(EnumeratorWrapper wrapper, int chunkSize, int start)
    {
        this.wrapper = wrapper;
        this.chunkSize = chunkSize;
        this.start = start;
    }

    public IEnumerator GetEnumerator()
    {
        return new ChildEnumerator(this);
    }

    System.Collections.IEnumerator System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return GetEnumerator();
    }

}
private class EnumeratorWrapper
{
    public EnumeratorWrapper(IEnumerable source)
    {
        SourceEumerable = source;
    }
    IEnumerable SourceEumerable { get; set; }

    Enumeration currentEnumeration;

    class Enumeration
    {
        public IEnumerator Source { get; set; }
        public int Position { get; set; }
        public bool AtEnd { get; set; }
    }

    public bool Get(int pos, out T item)
    {

        if (currentEnumeration != null && currentEnumeration.Position > pos)
        {
            currentEnumeration.Source.Dispose();
            currentEnumeration = null;
        }

        if (currentEnumeration == null)
        {
            currentEnumeration = new Enumeration { Position = -1, Source = SourceEumerable.GetEnumerator(), AtEnd = false };
        }

        item = default(T);
        if (currentEnumeration.AtEnd)
        {
            return false;
        }

        while (currentEnumeration.Position < pos)
        {
            currentEnumeration.AtEnd = !currentEnumeration.Source.MoveNext();
            currentEnumeration.Position++;

            if (currentEnumeration.AtEnd)
            {
                return false;
            }

        }

        item = currentEnumeration.Source.Current;

        return true;
    }

    int refs = 0;

    // needed for dispose semantics 
    public void AddRef()
    {
        refs++;
    }

    public void RemoveRef()
    {
        refs--;
        if (refs == 0 && currentEnumeration != null)
        {
            var copy = currentEnumeration;
            currentEnumeration = null;
            copy.Source.Dispose();
        }
    }
}
/// 
Speed Checked.  Works Great!
public static IEnumerable> Chunk(this IEnumerable source, int chunksize)
{
    if (chunksize < 1) throw new InvalidOperationException();

    var wrapper = new EnumeratorWrapper(source);

    int currentPos = 0;
    T ignore;
    try
    {
        wrapper.AddRef();
        while (wrapper.Get(currentPos, out ignore))
        {
            yield return new ChunkedEnumerable(wrapper, chunksize, currentPos);
            currentPos += chunksize;
        }
    }
    finally
    {
        wrapper.RemoveRef();
    }
}
#endregion