Reading CSV files using C#

user_304083 0
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I'm writing a simple import application and need to read a CSV file, show result in a DataGrid and show corrupted lines of the CSV file in another grid. For example, show the lines that are shorter than 5 values in another grid. I'm trying to do that like this:

StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(FilePath);
importingData = new Account();
string line;
string[] row = new string [5];
while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
    row = line.Split(',');

    importingData.Add(new Transaction
    {
        Date = DateTime.Parse(row[0]),
        Reference = row[1],
        Description = row[2],
        Amount = decimal.Parse(row[3]),
        Category = (Category)Enum.Parse(typeof(Category), row[4])
    });
}

but it's very difficult to operate on arrays in this case. Is there a better way to split the values?

csv c#
12 Answers

Another one to this list, Cinchoo ETL - an open source library to read and write CSV files

For a sample CSV file below

Id, Name
1, Tom
2, Mark

Quickly you can load them using library as below

using (var reader = new ChoCSVReader("test.csv").WithFirstLineHeader())
{
   foreach (dynamic item in reader)
   {
      Console.WriteLine(item.Id);
      Console.WriteLine(item.Name);
   }
}

If you have POCO class matching the CSV file

public class Employee
{
   public int Id { get; set; }
   public string Name { get; set; }
}

You can use it to load the CSV file as below

using (var reader = new ChoCSVReader<Employee>("test.csv").WithFirstLineHeader())
{
   foreach (var item in reader)
   {
      Console.WriteLine(item.Id);
      Console.WriteLine(item.Name);
   }
}

Please check out articles at CodeProject on how to use it.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of this library

user_12885450

Here's a solution I coded up today for a situation where I needed to parse a CSV without relying on external libraries. I haven't tested performance for large files since it wasn't relevant to my particular use case but I'd expect it to perform reasonably well for most situations.

        static List<List<string>> ParseCsv(string csv) {
            var parsedCsv = new List<List<string>>();
            var row = new List<string>();
            string field = "";
            bool inQuotedField = false;

            for (int i = 0; i < csv.Length; i++) {
                char current = csv[i];
                char next = i == csv.Length - 1 ? ' ' : csv[i + 1];

                // if current character is not a quote or comma or carriage return or newline (or not a quote and currently in an a quoted field), just add the character to the current field text
                if ((current != '"' && current != ',' && current != '\r' && current != '\n') || (current != '"' && inQuotedField)) {
                    field += current;
                } else if (current == ' ' || current == '\t') {
                    continue; // ignore whitespace outside a quoted field
                } else if (current == '"') {
                    if (inQuotedField && next == '"') { // quote is escaping a quote within a quoted field
                        i++; // skip escaping quote
                        field += current;
                    } else if (inQuotedField) { // quote signifies the end of a quoted field
                        row.Add(field);
                        if (next == ',') {
                            i++; // skip the comma separator since we've already found the end of the field
                        }
                        field = "";
                        inQuotedField = false;
                    } else { // quote signifies the beginning of a quoted field
                        inQuotedField = true; 
                    }
                } else if (current == ',') { //
                    row.Add(field);
                    field = "";
                } else if (current == '\n') {
                    row.Add(field);
                    parsedCsv.Add(new List<string>(row));
                    field = "";
                    row.Clear();
                }
            }

            return parsedCsv;
        }
user_90805170

I'd highly suggest using CsvHelper.

Here's a quick example: 

public class csvExampleClass
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string Firstname { get; set; }
    public string Lastname { get; set; }
}

var items = DeserializeCsvFile<List<csvExampleClass>>( csvText );

public static List<T> DeserializeCsvFile<T>(string text)
{
    CsvReader csv = new CsvReader( new StringReader( text ) );
    csv.Configuration.Delimiter = ",";
    csv.Configuration.HeaderValidated = null;
    csv.Configuration.MissingFieldFound = null;
    return (List<T>)csv.GetRecords<T>();
}

Full documentation can be found at: https://joshclose.github.io/CsvHelper

user_137309900
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