Public Sub Main()
   ' TrimStart Examples
   Dim lineWithLeadingSpaces as String = "   Hello World!"
   Dim lineWithLeadingSymbols as String = "$$$$Hello World!"
   Dim lineWithLeadingUnderscores as String = "_____Hello World!"
   Dim lineWithLeadingLetters as String = "xxxxHello World!"
   Dim lineAfterTrimStart = String.Empty

   ' Make it easy to print out and work with all of the examples
   Dim lines As String() = { lineWithLeadingSpaces, line lineWithLeadingSymbols, lineWithLeadingUnderscores, lineWithLeadingLetters }

   For Each line As String in lines
     Console.WriteLine($"This line has leading characters: {line}")
   Next
   ' Output:
   ' This line has leading characters:    Hello World!
   ' This line has leading characters: $$$$Hello World!
   ' This line has leading characters: _____Hello World!
   ' This line has leading characters: xxxxHello World!

   Console.WriteLine($"This line has leading spaces: {lineWithLeadingSpaces}")
   ' This line has leading spaces:   Hello World!

   ' A basic demonstration of TrimStart in action
   lineAfterTrimStart = lineWithLeadingSpaces.TrimStart(" "c)
   Console.WriteLine($"This is the result after calling TrimStart: {lineAfterTrimStart}")
   ' This is the result after calling TrimStart: Hello World!

   ' Since TrimStart accepts a character array of leading items to be removed as an argument,
   ' it's possible to do things like trim multiple pieces of data that each have different 
   ' leading characters,
   For Each lineToEdit As String in lines
     Console.WriteLine(lineToEdit.TrimStart(" "c, "$"c, "_"c, "x"c ))
   Next
   ' Result for each: Hello World!

   ' or handle pieces of data that have multiple kinds of leading characters
   Dim lineToBeTrimmed as String = "__###__ John Smith"
   lineAfterTrimStart = lineToBeTrimmed.TrimStart("_"c , "#"c , " "c)
   Console.WriteLine(lineAfterTrimStart)
   ' Result: John Smith

 End Sub

Public Shared Function StripComments(lines() As String) As String()
   Dim lineList As New List(Of String)
   For Each line As String In lines
      If line.TrimStart(" "c).StartsWith("'") Then
         linelist.Add(line.TrimStart("'"c, " "c))
      End If
   Next
   Return lineList.ToArray()
End Function

Public Shared Sub Main()
   Dim lines() As String = {"Public Module HelloWorld", _
                            "   Public Sub Main()", _
                            "      ' This code displays a simple greeting", _
                            "      ' to the console.", _
                            "      Console.WriteLine(""Hello, World."")", _
                            "   End Sub", _
                            " End Module"}
   Console.WriteLine("Code before call to StripComments:")
   For Each line As String In lines
      Console.WriteLine("   {0}", line)                         
   Next                            
   
   Dim strippedLines() As String = StripComments(lines) 
   Console.WriteLine("Code after call to StripComments:")
   For Each line As String In strippedLines
      Console.WriteLine("   {0}", line)                         
   Next                            
End Sub
' This code produces the following output to the console:
'    Code before call to StripComments:
'       Public Module HelloWorld
'          Public Sub Main()
'             ' This code displays a simple greeting
'             ' to the console.
'             Console.WriteLine("Hello, World.")
'          End Sub
'       End Module
'    Code after call to StripComments:
'       This code displays a simple greeting
'       to the console.