Question

all,

I started out with what i thought was going to be a pretty simple task. (convert a csv to “wiki” format) but im hitting a few snags that im having trouble working through

I have 3 main problems

1) some of the cells contain \r\n ( so when reading line by line this treats each new line as a new cell

2) some of the rows contain “,” ( i tried switching to \t delemited files but im still running into a problem escaping when its between two “”)

3) some rows are completely blank except for the delmiter (“,” or “\t”) others are incomplete (which is fine i just need to make sure that the cell goes in the correct place)

I’ve tried a few of the CSV reader classes but they would bump up agenst of teh problems listed above

I’m trying to keep this app as small as possible so i am also trying to avoid dlls and large classes that only a small portion do what i want.

so far i have two “attempts that are not working

Atempt 1 (doesn’t handel \r\n in a cell)

OpenFileDialog openFileDialog1 = new OpenFileDialog();

            openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
            openFileDialog1.Filter = "tab sep file (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*";
            openFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 1;
            openFileDialog1.RestoreDirectory = true;

            if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
            {
                if (cb_sortable.Checked)
                {
                    header = "{| class=\"wikitable sortable\" border=\"1\" \r\n|+ Sortable table";
                }

                StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
                string line;
                bool firstline = true;
                StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(openFileDialog1.FileName);

                sb.AppendLine(header);

                while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
                {

                    if (line.Replace("\t", "").Length > 1)
                    {
                        string[] hold;
                        string lead = "| ";

                        if (firstline && cb_header.Checked == true)
                        {
                            lead = "| align=\"center\" style=\"background:#f0f0f0;\"| ";
                        }

                        hold = line.Split('\t');
                        sb.AppendLine(table);
                        foreach (string row in hold)
                        {
                            sb.AppendLine(lead + row.Replace("\"", ""));
                        }


                        firstline = false;
                    }
                }
                sb.AppendLine(footer);
                Clipboard.SetText(sb.ToString());
                MessageBox.Show("Done!");
        }


        }
        string header = "{| class=\"wikitable\" border=\"1\" ";
        string footer = "|}";
        string table = "|-";

attempt 2 ( can handle \r\n but shifts cells over blank cells) (its not complete yet)

OpenFileDialog openFileDialog1 = new OpenFileDialog();

        openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
        openFileDialog1.Filter = "txt file (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*";
        openFileDialog1.FilterIndex = 1;
        openFileDialog1.RestoreDirectory = true;

        if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
        {
            if (cb_sortable.Checked)
            {
                header = "{| class=\"wikitable sortable\" border=\"1\" \r\n|+ Sortable table";
            }


            using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(openFileDialog1.FileName))
            {


                string text = sr.ReadToEnd();
                string[] cells = text.Split('\t');
                int columnCount = 0;
                foreach (string cell in cells)
                {

                    if (cell.Contains("\r\n"))
                    {
                        break;
                    }
                    columnCount++;
                }          


            }

basically all I needs is a “split if not between \” ” but im just at a loss right now

any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

Checkout this project instead of rolling your own CSV parser.