Extracting data from text file with differing delimiters

I have a text file that I need to split into an array, each element of the array will contain data for 1 person. I will then use Regex (C#) to extract all the data for that person. The problem I am having is matching the start of each person as the pattern changes within the file. See below:

A simplified version of the data is below:

Address FirstName \r\nSurname NHS No Age = 44\r\n

Address FirstName\r\n Surname NHS No 12345\r\n

Address FirstName\r\n Surname NHS No Age = 35\r\n

Address FirstName \r\nSurname NHS No 54321\r\n

As you can see there are linebreaks within the file 开发者_开发知识库so StreamReader.Readline() method probably won't work. The address name and surname fields are fixed length fields and I can extract these using substring. I can split into the array of people once I have a consistent marker for the start/end of each person.

I need to use Regex.Replace to add a start of person marker, then use this marker to split into the array. I would appreciate any help with this.

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I'll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems. _{Jamie Zawinski}

Are you convinced that regex will make your code easier to write, read and maintain?

Consider using String.Split() instead.

From your comments, it looks like each row represents a single entity, regardless of the nuances of the format. For start, you could read the file line by line, and split each line into words using String.Split:

using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("addresses.txt")) 
{
     string line;
     // Read and display lines from the file until the end of 
     // the file is reached.
     while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null) 
     {
         string[] tokens = line.Split(' ');

         // variant 1: Address FirstName Surname NHS No //Person1 Age = 44
         // variant 2: Address FirstName Surname NHS No //person 2 12345

         Console.Writeline("Address: ", tokens[0]);
         Console.Writeline("First name: ", tokens[1]);

         // etc.
     }
}