// strip punctuaction, then trim public static string StripPunctuation(string inTerm) { int length = inTerm.Length; char[] temp = new char[length]; int index = 0; for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) { char tempChar = inTerm[i]; if (CharUtil.IsPunctuation(tempChar) == false) { temp[index] = tempChar; index++; } } string @out = new string(temp); return(@out.Trim(new char[] { ' ', '\x00' })); // must be trimmed }