Question

I know I have asked this question in a different manner earlier today but I have refined my needs a little better.

Given the following csv file where the first column is the title and there could be any number of columns;

year,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017
income,1000,1500,2000,2100,2100,2100,2100,2100,2100,2100
dividends,100,200,300,300,300,300,300,300,300,300
net profit,1100,1700,2300,2400,2400,2400,2400,2400,2400,2400
expenses,500,600,500,400,400,400,400,400,400,400
profit,600,1100,1800,2000,2000,2000,2000,2000,2000,2000

How do I select the profit value for a given year? So I may provide a year of say 2011 and expect to get the profit value of 2000 back.

At the moment I have this which shows the profit value for each year but ideally I’d like to specify the year and get the profit value;

        var data = File.ReadAllLines(fileName)
            .Select( 
                l => {
                    var split = l.Split(",".ToCharArray());
                    return split;
                }
            );

        var profit = (from p in data where p[0] == profitFieldName select p).SingleOrDefault();
        var years = (from p in data where p[0] == yearFieldName select p).FirstOrDefault();
        int columnCount = years.Count() ;

        for (int t = 1; t < columnCount; t++)
            Console.WriteLine("{0} : ${1}", years[t], profit[t]);

Answer 1

I’ve already answered this once today, but this answer is a little more fleshed out and hopefully clearer.

string rowName = "profit";
string year = "2011";

var yearRow = data.First();
var yearIndex = Array.IndexOf(yearRow, year);

// get your 'profits' row, or whatever row you want
var row = data.Single(d => d[0] == rowName);

// return the appropriate index for that row.
return row[yearIndex];

This works for me.