Palindrome checker need help

[jd3189]

Hello everyone,

I need to create a program that checks to see if a word or phrase is a palindrome. A palindrome if you are not familiar is a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards like racecar, disregarding punctuation, case, and spaces (basically, any non-alphabetic characters.

I need to create a method that strips out non-alphabetic characters, and another Boolean-valued method that returns the value True when the word or phrase is a palindrome and the value False otherwise.

I am totally lost if anyone could please help. Just fyi I am using visual studios 2013 C#.

[ddanbe]

You could probably use this method to start with.

[DaveAmour]

How about this:

using System;
using System.Linq;

namespace Palindrome
{
    public class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("racecar: " + "racecar".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("dad: " + "dad".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("mum: " + "mum".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("dog: " + "dog".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("floor: " + "floor".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("Racecar: " + "Racecar".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("Rac ecar: " + "Rac ecar".IsPalindrome());
            Console.WriteLine("Racecar': " + "Racecar'".IsPalindrome());

            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        public static bool IsPalindrome(this string word)
        {
            var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where(Char.IsLetter));

            var reversedWord = String.Join("", lettersOnly.Reverse());

            return lettersOnly == reversedWord;        
        }
    }
}

[ddanbe]

Dave, I just have one question, why does Char.IsLetter work? Should this not be Char.IsLetter(ch)? Or is this implied by LINQ?

[DaveAmour]

Hi

Sorry for the late replay, out all day yesterday.

The compact shorthand I have used here is called a Method Group.

To really understand this I would type for about 10 pages or if you have time watch these videos in this order. Will take a while but they are really high quality and very enjoyable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Zb0nD7PHA&index=1&list=PLdbkZkVDyKZVvizO94tJNmTfRzXWGDFZ3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nd-tcQcslc&list=PLdbkZkVDyKZVvizO94tJNmTfRzXWGDFZ3&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qnwc5XqVs0&list=PLdbkZkVDyKZVvizO94tJNmTfRzXWGDFZ3&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJItr-ecdCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSXsmAAZcw

Finally consider the following progression - think of that image of an ape gradually evolving into a human!

//var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where(delegate(char c) { return Char.IsLetter(c); }));
//var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where((char c) => { return Char.IsLetter(c); }));
//var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where(c => { return Char.IsLetter(c); }));
//var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where(c => Char.IsLetter(c)));
var lettersOnly = String.Join("", word.ToLower().Where(Char.IsLetter));

[ddanbe]

Thanks for de good quality videos!
Love your comparision of the ape evolution!
Little remark: I hope you know that apes and man had a common ancestor.
A chimp will never evolve into a human. :)

[DaveAmour]

Yes I know all about the chimps thanks!

[jd3189]

Got it to work! Thanks guys.

[DaveAmour]

Youre welcome, any exucse to play around with Linq!