C# write multi lines to cs file.

Question

Hello.

I googled and found the solution at MSDN.

// Compose a string that consists of three lines.
string lines = "First line.\r\nSecond line.\r\nThird line.";

// Write the string to a file.
System.IO.StreamWriter file = new System.IO.StreamWriter("c:\\test.txt");
file.WriteLine(lines);

file.Close();

How to extend the lines to complex content which including some natural C# code lines. eg. I want to write the information below to my test.cs file.

Why? I am parsing a XML schema with C# Console Application. And i want to generate the Console Result to a .cs file during the compiler time.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace CommonDef
{
    public class CCODEData
    {
        public int iCodeId;
        public string sCode;
        public CODEDType cType;
        public int iOccures;
    }

    [Description("CodeType for XML schema.")]
    public enum CODEDType
    {
        cString = 1,
        cInt = 2,
        cBoolean = 3,
    }

thank you.

Answer 1

If your source code is hardcoded as in your sample, you could use a C# literal string:

string lines = 
@"using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

namespace CommonDef
..."

Anyway in such cases it is a better idea (more readable and maintainable) to have the whole text contents into a text file as an embedded resource in your assembly, then read it using GetManifestResourceStream.

Answer 2

(I'm assuming you're trying to build up the result programmatically - if you genuinely have hard-coded data, you could use Konamiman's approach; I agree that using an embedded resource file would be better than a huge verbatim string literal.)

In your case I would suggest not trying to build up the whole file into a single string. Instead, use WriteLine repeatedly:

using (TextWriter writer = File.CreateText("foo.cs"))
{
    foreach (string usingDirective in usingDirectives)
    {
        writer.WriteLine("using {0};", usingDirective);
    }
    writer.WriteLine();
    writer.WriteLine("namespace {0}", targetNamespace);
    // etc
}

You may wish to write a helper type to allow simple indentation etc.

If these suggestions don't help, please give more details of your situation.

Answer 3

I know an answer has already been accepted but why not use an XSLT applied to the XML instead? this would mean that you could easily generate c#, vb.net, .net without having to recompile the app.