I have a CSV file that I want to read into a List. Here's an example file:
Plant,Material,"Density, Lb/ft3",Storage Location FRED,10000477,64.3008,3300 FRED,10000479,62.612,3275 FRED,10000517,90,3550 FRED,10000517,72,3550 FRED,10000532,90,3550 FRED,10000532,72,3550 FRED,10000550,97,3050 I know I can manually read in the CSV file and build the list using a normal StreamReader, but I was wondering if there was a better way, perhaps using LINQ?
For the specific data shown in your question...
var yourData = File.ReadAllLines("yourFile.csv") .Skip(1) .Select(x => x.Split(',')) .Select(x => new { Plant = x[0], Material = x[1], Density = double.Parse(x[2]), StorageLocation = int.Parse(x[3]) }); If you already have a type declared for your data then you can use that rather than the anonymous type.
Note that this code isn't robust at all. It won't correctly handle values containing commas/newlines etc, quoted string values, or any of the other esoteric stuff that is often found in CSV files.
You can use a simple code like this, which ignores the header and doesn't work with quotes, but may be sufficient for your needs.
from line in File.ReadAllLines(fileName).Skip(1) let columns = line.Split(',') select new { Plant = columns[0], Material = int.Parse(columns[1]), Density = float.Parse(columns[2]), StorageLocation = int.Parse(columns[3]) } Or you can use a library, like others suggested.
There's a codeproject for that:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/linq/LINQtoCSV.aspx
However, you may want to look here:
I wrote a simple library to allow developers to use LINQ on CSV files. Here is my blog post about it: http://procbits.com/2010/10/11/using-linq-with-csv-files/
In your case, you would have to change your header string to look like this:
Plant,Material,DensityLbft3,StorageLocation And then you could parse the file like this:
var linqCSV = new CsvToXml("csvfile", true); linqCsv.TextQualifier = null; linqCsv.ColumnTypes.Add("Plant", typeof(string)); linqCsv.ColumnTypes.Add("Material", typeof(int)); linqCsv.ColumnTypes.Add("DensityLbft3", typeof(double)); linqCsv.ColumnTypes.Add("StorageLocation", typeof(int)); linqCsv.Convert(); You could then use LINQ like this:
var items = from item in linqCsv.DynamicRecords where item.Plant == "Fred" && item.DensityLbft3 >= 62.6 orderby item.StorageLocation select item; Hope that helps or works for you.
It doesn't use LINQ but CsvHelper is a simple method to implement CSV parsing to a .NET object:
using (TextReader txt = new StreamReader(filename)) { using (var csv = new CsvReader(txt)) { var records = csv.GetRecords<PlantMaterial>(); return records.ToList(); } } With Cinchoo ETL library, can parse CSV file into objects
Define type matching CSV file structure as below
public class PlantType { public string Plant { get; set; } public int Material { get; set; } public double Density { get; set; } public int StorageLocation { get; set; } } Load the CSV file
static void LoadCSV() { using (var p = new ChoCSVReader<PlantType>("*** YOUR CSV FILE PATH ***") .WithFirstLineHeader(true) ) { foreach (var rec in p) { Console.WriteLine(rec.Dump()); } } } 