What library to use for CSV import in c#

Question

Hi,

I've looked at FileHelpers v2.0 but there is a serious problem woth that. I cannot define a class that maps to the record in the source/detination file.

The reason is I don't know what file I'm going to get. A big part of my program is mapping the file's fields to the database's fields... I don't know how many fields there wil be, nor wich will need to be imported.

I have no intention on rolling my own lib, especially since I have no control over the files that are going to be fed to my program.

Any solutions tot his?

Dennis

Answer 1

Check out the Fast CSV reader on the CodeProject. It helped me with my project a while ago. Its really easy to use, and is quite good.

Answer 2

You can use ADO.NET to directly read the .CSV file into a DataTable. If you don't know how many fields will exist in advance, this can be a useful means of working with the data. This also has the advantage of not requiring any external libraries.

For details, please see Deborah Kurata's article on the subject.

Answer 3

StreamReader has been fast enough for me for pretty much every text file, though you are pretty screwed if you cant even guarantee value ordering.