>>>>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.
>
>I was going to suggest split. Maybe I'm being dense but I can't make sense of that line. Can you just paste the line directly from the C# code.....

that line doesn't exist in the code, I was just showing you what is in the text file.

1,73358,"20130111","MIA","POS","BW 791","106 8750 3231 - 7 BAGS LESS"

string inputLine = reader.ReadLine();

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 is the value between the first and second commas.

manifestDate is the value between the first and second quotation marks.