Question

I need to read a text file like this

MyItemName = Description @ MoreInfo

Now I need to convert this 3 fields in to a table. using the ‘=’ and ‘@’ as pattern.

Answer 1

Just splitting on = and @ – this returns and IEnumerable of an anonymous class with the properties you are interested in:

var items = File.ReadAllLines(fileName)
                .Skip(1) //Skip header
                .Where( line => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(line))
                .Select(line =>
                {
                    var columns = line.Split('=', '@');
                    return new
                    {
                        ItemName = columns[0].Trim(),
                        Description = columns[1].Trim(),
                        MoreInfo = columns[2].Trim()
                    };
                });

This approach would require the separator tokens to be used as separators exclusively – if they do occur in any of the fields, this will mess up everything and void this approach.