Question

I am trying to get the second value from a CSV file with 100 rows. I am getting the first 42 values then it stops… no error messege, or error handling at all for that matter. I am perplexed and am on a timeline. It is also doing it for a TSV file, but giving the first 43 results. Please help and let me know if it looks strange to you.

I am using streamreader, reading each line into a string array, splitting the array and taking the second value and adding it to a list…

        string path = @"C:\Users\dave\Desktop\codes\testfile.txt";
        StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(path);
        List<string> stkno = new List<string>();

        foreach (var line in path)
        {
            string s = sr.ReadLine();
            string[] words = s.Split(',');
            stkno.Add(words[1]);
        }
        var message = string.Join(",", stkno.ToArray());
        MessageBox.Show(message);

Answer 1

Your path variable is a string. That means when you foreach over it, you’re getting a sequence of characters – ‘C’ then ‘:’ then ‘\’ etc. I don’t think that’s what you mean to do…

Here’s a simpler approach using File.ReadLines:

string path = @"C:\Users\dave\Desktop\codes\testfile.txt";

List<string> stkno = (from line in File.ReadLines(path)
                      let words = line.Split(',')
                      select words[1]).ToList();

Or:

string path = @"C:\Users\dave\Desktop\codes\testfile.txt";

List<string> stkno = File.ReadLines(path)
                         .Select(line => line.Split(',')[1])
                         .ToList();

If you’re using .NET 3.5 and you don’t mind reading the whole file in one go, you can use File.ReadAllLines instead.