>>Hi,
>>
>>I'm sure this is something simple but I am too close to see the problem.
>>
>>I have a string with this value (it is being read from a text file):
>>
>>string inputLine = "1,73358,"20130111","MIA","POS","BW 791","106 8750 3231 - 7 BAGS LESS""
>>
>>I want to pull out the 73358 and the 20130111 into two variables, so I did this:
>>
>>string manifestNumber = inputLine.Substring(inputLine.IndexOf(",") + 1, inputLine.IndexOf(",", 2) - (inputLine.IndexOf(",") + 1));
>>string manifestDate = inputLine.Substring(inputLine.IndexOf("\"") + 1, inputLine.IndexOf("\"", 2) - (inputLine.IndexOf("\"") + 1));
>>
>>manifestNumber works properly to give me 73358.
>>
>>I get an error on manifestDate that "length cannot be less than zero".
>>
>>When I check inputLine.IndexOf("\"") I get 8
>>and inputLine.IndexOf("\"", 2) also returns 8!
>>
>>Why should that be?
>
>Something wrong here. This wouldn't resolve to a string:
>string inputLine = "1,73358,"20130111","MIA","POS","BW 791","106 8750 3231 - 7 BAGS LESS""

sorry, it passed through UT's compiler without a problem ;)

it is a string, I read it from a text file. I just used the outer quotation marks to illustrate the point, but I guess I should hav eused single quotes.

FWIW, I used inputLine.Split(',') to get what I needed, but I'm very interested in what I was doing wrong with IndexOf.