July « 2008 « Kivela

4Jul/082

Rtf stripper

Have you ever had the need to parse an rtf file to normal text ?

One option (and the easiest one) is just using the RichTextControl, setting its RTF property and getting its text property.

If however your not in a UI project it just smells to add a controls reference to do just a simple parsing, or to be more precise a simple stripping.

Since one of my collegues needed such functionality we ended up converting an old c function to the following.

public static String Strip(String rtf) { String strCopy = ""; bool slash = false; //indicates if backslash followed by the space bool figure_opened = false; //indicates if opening figure brace followed by the space bool figure_closed = false; //indicates if closing brace followed by the space bool first_space = false; //the else spaces are in plain text and must be included to the result int length = rtf.Length; if (length < 4) return ""; int start = 0; int k = 0;


            start = rtf.IndexOf(@"\pard");

            if (start < 1) return "";

            char ch;

            for (int j = start; j < length; j++)

            {

                ch = rtf[j];

                if (ch == '\\')//we are looking at the backslash

                {

                    first_space = true;

                    slash = true;

                }

                if (ch == '{')

                {

                    first_space = true;

                    figure_opened = true;

                }

                if (ch == '}')

                {

                    first_space = true;

                    figure_closed = true;

                }

                if (ch == ' ' && rtf.IndexOf(@"\datafield", j - 10) + 10 != j)

                {

                    slash = false;

                    figure_opened = false;

                    figure_closed = false;

                }

                if (ch == '\\' && rtf[j + 1] == '{') //if the text contains symbol '{'

                {

                    slash = false;

                    figure_opened = false;

                    figure_closed = false;

                    first_space = false;

                    strCopy += '{';

                    j++; k++;

                    continue;

                }

                if (ch == '\\' && rtf[j + 1] == '}') //if the text contains symbol '}'

                {

                    slash = false;

                    figure_opened = false;

                    figure_closed = false;

                    first_space = false;

                    strCopy += '}';

                    j++; k++;

                    continue;

                }

                if (ch == '\\' && rtf[j + 1] == '\\')//if the text contains symbol '\'

                {

                    slash = false;

                    figure_opened = false;

                    figure_closed = false;

                    first_space = false;

                    strCopy += '\\';

                    j++;

                    continue;

                }

                if (rtf.IndexOf("\\par ", j) == j && rtf.IndexOf("\\pard", j) != j)//if there is next line of text

                {

                    slash = false;

                    figure_opened = false;

                    figure_closed = false;

                    first_space = false;

                    strCopy += '\n';

                    j += 4;

                    continue;

                }

                if (rtf.IndexOf("HYPERLINK", j) == j)

                {

                    int i = rtf.IndexOf('"', j) - j + 1;

                    while (rtf[j + i] != '"')

                    {

                        i++;

                    }

                    j = j + i + 1;

                    continue;

                }

                if (slash == false && figure_opened == false && figure_closed == false && ch != '\n' /*&& ch!=13*/ && rtf.IndexOf("HYPERLINK", j + 1) != j + 1)

                {

                    if (!first_space)

                    {

                        strCopy += ch;

                    }

                    else

                    {

                        first_space = false;

                    }

                }
            }