Using OleDbConnection to Read Tab-Seperated File

Question

My tab-delimited file is something like this:

ISO ISO3    ISO-Numeric
AD  AND 20

I've been trying the following code with no luck.

        OleDbConnection cn = new  OleDbConnection(@"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=
|DataDirectory|;Extended Properties='text;HDR=Yes;FMT=TabDelimited'");

        OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand(@"SELECT * FROM countryInfo.txt", cn);
        OleDbDataAdapter da = new OleDbDataAdapter(cmd);

        cn.Open();

        DataTable dt = new DataTable();

        da.Fill(dt);

Here's a screenshot of the Dataset Visualizer. Its obviously not the output i'm after.

Any suggestions? Here's my Schema.ini file. Its in the same directory as the text file.

[countryInfo.txt]
Format=TabDelimited
ColNameHeader=True
CharacterSet=ANSI

Should i just use something like FileHelpers instead?

---

@Hans Passant Here's a screenshot.

Answer 1

Well, one obvious candidate is that this white space isn't actually a tab but spaces. Try FMT=Delimited( ). Use a hex viewer to see what's really there. Backgrounder is here.

And this thread shows why using a buggy chunk of code like Jet that hasn't been supported for the past 9 years is such as mistake. With the answer, leave the first line in schema.ini blank.