Question

I have a csv that I need to parse into a gridview in vb.net. If I do SELECT *, I get the data without issue. However, I am in a situation where I need to reference the actual column names. And problem is, I have no control over the app that generates the csv, and they make the column names enclosed in square brackets.

How the heck can I do something like this:

Dim cmdSelect As New OleDbCommand(SELECT "[name], [height] FROM myTable")

so I get a return of data?

So, in an effort to be perfectly clear: I have an app that creates a csv with the column headers [name] and [height] in a table called myTable, and for the life of me I can’t figure out how to return [name] and [height] specifically.

Answer 1

If the column names have square brackets, then you can use double quotes to wrap around the column names. Below sample was tested in SQL Server.

Script:

CREATE TABLE dbo.myTable
(
        "[name]" varchar(max) not null
    ,   "[height]" int not null
);

Querying all the columns:

SELECT * FROM dbo.myTable

Querying only specific columns:

SELECT "[name]", "[height]" FROM dbo.myTable

VB.NET Code – Sample 1:

Dim query As String = String.Format("SELECT {0}{1}{0}, {0}{2}{0} FROM dbo.myTable", """", "[name]", "[height]")
Dim cmdSelect As New OleDbCommand(query)

VB.NET Code – Sample 2:

Dim query As String = String.Format("SELECT {0}[name]{0}, {0}[height]{0} FROM dbo.myTable", """")
Dim cmdSelect As New OleDbCommand(query)