Question

I am trying to populate combo boxes from a text file using comma as a delimiter everything was working fine, but now when I debug I get the “Index out of range exception was unhandled” warning. I guess I need a fresh pair of eyes to see where I went wrong, I commented on the line that gets the error //Fname = fields[1];

    private void xViewFacultyMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        const string fileStaff = "source\\Staff.txt";
        const char DELIM = ',';
        string Lname, Fname, Depart, Stat, Sex, Salary, cDept, cStat, cSex;
        double Gtotal;
        string recordIn;
        string[] fields;

            cDept = this.xDeptComboBox.SelectedItem.ToString();
            cStat = this.xStatusComboBox.SelectedItem.ToString();
            cSex = this.xSexComboBox.SelectedItem.ToString();
            FileStream inFile = new FileStream(fileStaff, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);
            StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(inFile);

            recordIn = reader.ReadLine();

            while (recordIn != null)
            {

                fields = recordIn.Split(DELIM);
                Lname = fields[0];
                Fname = fields[1]; // this is where the error appears
                Depart = fields[2];
                Stat = fields[3];
                Sex = fields[4];
                Salary = fields[5];

                Fname = fields[1].TrimStart(null);
                Depart = fields[2].TrimStart(null);
                Stat = fields[3].TrimStart(null);
                Sex = fields[4].TrimStart(null);
                Salary = fields[5].TrimStart(null);

                Gtotal = double.Parse(Salary);

                if (Depart == cDept && cStat == Stat && cSex == Sex)
                {

                    this.xEmployeeListBox.Items.Add(recordIn);

                }
                recordIn = reader.ReadLine();

            }




Source file --


Anderson, Kristen, Accounting, Assistant, Female, 43155
Ball, Robin, Accounting, Instructor, Female, 42723
Chin, Roger, Accounting, Full, Male,59281
Coats, William, Accounting, Assistant, Male, 45371
Doepke, Cheryl, Accounting, Full, Female, 52105
Downs, Clifton, Accounting, Associate, Male, 46887
Garafano, Karen, Finance, Associate, Female, 49000
Hill, Trevor, Management, Instructor, Male, 38590
Jackson, Carole, Accounting, Instructor, Female, 38781
Jacobson, Andrew, Management, Full, Male, 56281
Lewis, Karl, Management, Associate, Male, 48387
Mack, Kevin, Management, Assistant, Male, 45000
McKaye, Susan, Management, Instructor, Female, 43979
Nelsen, Beth, Finance, Full, Female, 52339
Nelson, Dale, Accounting, Full, Male, 54578
Palermo, Sheryl, Accounting, Associate, Female, 45617
Rais, Mary, Finance, Instructor, Female, 27000
Scheib, Earl, Management, Instructor, Male, 37389
Smith, Tom, Finance, Full, Male, 57167
Smythe, Janice, Management, Associate, Female, 46887
True, David, Accounting, Full, Male, 53181
Young, Jeff, Management, Assistant, Male, 43513

Answer 1

For the sake of anyone who doesn’t want to look at the mammoth code you’ve posted, here’s the relevant bit:

while (recordIn != null)
{

    fields = recordIn.Split(DELIM);
    Lname = fields[0];
    Fname = fields[1]; // this is where the error appears

Given the exception you’ve seen, that basically means that recordIn doesn’t contain the delimiter DELIM (a comma). I suggest you explicitly check for the expected size and throw an exception giving more details if you get an inappropriate line. Or if it’s a blank line, as others have suggested (and which does indeed seem likely) you may want to just skip it.

Alternatively, here’s a short but complete console application which should help you find the problem:

using System;
using System.IO;

class Test
{
    static void Main()
    {
        string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("source\\Staff.txt");
        for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)
        {
            string line = lines[i];
            string[] fields = line.Split(',');
            if (fields.Length != 6)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Invalid line ({0}): '{1}'",
                                  i + 1, line);
            }
        }
    }
}