Question

Can anyone help me to create a csv file from List, my scenario is, i have a multi dimensional values like below in a List

List<string[]> lst = new List<string[]>();
lst= csv1.ToList();

lst contains the values like,

lst[0] = {string[53]}
lst[1] = {string[53]}
lst[2] = {string[53]}
lst[3] = {string[53]}
lst[4] = {string[53]}

and string[53] contains the values like

lst[0]
    string[0] = "abc"
    string[1] = "def"
    string[2] = "ghi"
    string[3] = "jkl"
    string[4] = "mno"
    ...
lst[1]
    string[0] = "123"
    string[1] = "456"
    string[2] = "789"
    string[3] = "10"
    string[4] = "11"
    ...

I just wanted to write this multi-dimensional list to csv file as each item in lst[] to rows in csv and each item in string[] to columns such that the final output in my csv is

abc,def,ghi,jkl,mno
123,456,789,10,11

Any help would be really appreciated.

Answer 1

At the simplest level, not handling quoting / escaping / multi-line CSV issues, then just loop; maybe something like:

    using (var file = File.CreateText(path))
    {
        foreach(var arr in lst)
        {
           file.WriteLine(string.Join(",", arr));
        }
    }

or a tiny bit more efficient (no intermediary string):

    using (var file = File.CreateText(path))
    {
        foreach (var arr in lst)
        {
            if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(arr)) continue;
            file.Write(arr[0]);
            for(int i = 1 ; i < arr.Length ; i++)
            {
                file.Write(',');
                file.Write(arr[i]);
            }
            file.WriteLine();
        }
    }