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Getting Started

This guide will help you get started with NATOAlphabet in your .NET projects.

Installation

Using .NET CLI

dotnet add package NATOAlphabet

Using Package Manager Console

Install-Package NATOAlphabet

Using Visual Studio

  1. Right-click on your project in Solution Explorer
  2. Select "Manage NuGet Packages..."
  3. Search for "NATOAlphabet"
  4. Click "Install"

Basic Usage

The library provides a single extension method ToNato() that converts strings to their NATO phonetic alphabet representation:

using NATOAlphabet;

// Basic conversion
string result = "ABC".ToNato();
Console.WriteLine(result); // "Alpha Bravo Charlie"

Behavior

Letter Conversion

All letters A-Z (case-insensitive) are converted to their NATO phonetic alphabet equivalents:

"NATO".ToNato(); // "November Alpha Tango Oscar"
"abc".ToNato();  // "Alpha Bravo Charlie"

Accent Normalization

Accented characters are automatically normalized before conversion:

"Café".ToNato(); // "Charlie Alpha Foxtrot Echo"

Special Characters

Non-letter characters (digits, punctuation, symbols) are preserved as separate tokens:

"Hi!".ToNato();      // "Hotel India !"
"Pwd123!".ToNato();  // "Papa Whiskey Delta 1 2 3 !"
"ABC123".ToNato();   // "Alpha Bravo Charlie 1 2 3"

Whitespace

Whitespace characters are treated as non-letter characters and preserved:

"A B".ToNato();  // "Alpha  Bravo"

Custom Separator

By default, tokens are separated by a single space. You can provide a custom separator:

"AB".ToNato("|");    // "Alpha|Bravo"
"AB".ToNato(" - ");  // "Alpha - Bravo"
"ABC".ToNato("");    // "AlphaBravoCharlie"

Advanced Examples

Processing User Input

using NATOAlphabet;

Console.Write("Enter a message: ");
string? input = Console.ReadLine();
string nato = input.ToNato();
Console.WriteLine($"NATO: {nato}");

Formatting Output

using NATOAlphabet;

string message = "SOS";
string formatted = message.ToNato(" | ");
Console.WriteLine(formatted); 
// "Sierra | Oscar | Sierra"

Handling Null or Empty Strings

using NATOAlphabet;

string? nullString = null;
string emptyString = "";

Console.WriteLine(nullString.ToNato()); // ""
Console.WriteLine(emptyString.ToNato()); // ""

Next Steps