如何仅对字符串的一小部分执行字符串替换？

我想要一种有效的方法，可以起到这样的作用

编辑：抱歉，我没有输入我之前尝试过的内容。我现在更新了这个例子。

// Method signature, Only replaces first instance or how many are specified in max
public int MyReplace(ref string source,string org, string replace, int start, int max)
{
     int ret = 0;
     int len = replace.Length;
     int olen = org.Length;
     for(int i = 0; i < max; i++)
     {
          // Find the next instance of the search string
          int x = source.IndexOf(org, ret + olen);
          if(x > ret)
             ret = x;
          else
             break;

         // Insert the replacement
         source = source.Insert(x, replace);
         // And remove the original
         source = source.Remove(x + len, olen); // removes original string
     }
     return ret;
}

string source = "The cat can fly but only if he is the cat in the hat";
int i = MyReplace(ref source,"cat", "giraffe", 8, 1); 

// Results in the string "The cat can fly but only if he is the giraffe in the hat"
// i contains the index of the first letter of "giraffe" in the new string

我问的唯一原因是因为我想象我的实现会因 1,000 次替换而变得缓慢。

怎么样：

public static int MyReplace(ref string source,
    string org, string replace, int start, int max)
{
    if (start < 0) throw new System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException("start");
    if (max <= 0) return 0;
    start = source.IndexOf(org, start);
    if (start < 0) return 0;
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(source, 0, start, source.Length);
    int found = 0;
    while (max-- > 0) {
        int index = source.IndexOf(org, start);
        if (index < 0) break;
        sb.Append(source, start, index - start).Append(replace);
        start = index + org.Length;
        found++;
    }
    sb.Append(source, start, source.Length - start);
    source = sb.ToString();
    return found;
}

it uses StringBuilder以避免大量中间strings;我没有经过严格测试，但它似乎有效。它还试图避免额外的string当没有匹配项时。