How to concatenate strings into an grammatically correct sentence, split by commas, and an "and-CodePudding

I apologise if this has been asked before, but I can't find it.

How does one concatenate Dim x = {"apple", "banana", "milk"} into a grammatically correct sentence in the easiest way possible?

Function:

Function GetGrammaticalSentence(str as string()) as String
    //Do something
    Return ret
End Function

 Private _ingredients = {"apple", "banana", "milk"}

 Private _breakfastString = $"Today, I had {GetGrammaticalSentence(_ingredients)} in a bowl for breakfast"

Sub New()
     Console.WriteLine(_breakfastString)
End Sub

Result: Today I had apple, banana and milk in a bowl for breakfast.

CodePudding user response：

This should cover all the bases

Function GetGrammaticalSentence(str As String()) As String
    Select Case str.Count
        Case 0
            Return ""
        Case 1
            Return String.Concat("an ", str(0))
        Case 2
            Return String.Join(" and ", str)
        Case Else
            Return String.Concat("an ", String.Join(", ", str.SkipLast(1)), " and ", str.Last)
    End Select
End Function

CodePudding user response：

If the only rules you need to follow are that all words are separated by a comma except for the last word, which should be separated by and, you can use a simple loop.

    Function GetGrammaticalSentence(input As String()) As String
        Dim concat As String = input(0)                 'start off by capturing the first word 

        For index = 1 To input.Length - 1               'since we already captured the index 0, start at index 1

            If index = input.Length - 1 Then            'if it's the last word in the array, use and
                concat = $"{concat} and {input(index)}"
            Else                                        'else, use a comma
                concat = $"{concat}, {input(index)}"
            End If
        Next

        Return concat
    End Function