Parsing CSV files in C#, with header

Question

Is there a default/official/recommended way to parse CSV files in C#? I don\'t want to roll my own parser.

Also, I\'ve seen instances of people using ODBC/OLE DB to

Answer 1

This solution is using the official Microsoft.VisualBasic assembly to parse CSV.

Advantages:

• delimiter escaping
• ignores Header
• trim spaces
• ignore comments

Code:

    using Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO;

    public static List> ParseCSV (string csv)
    {
        List> result = new List>();


        // To use the TextFieldParser a reference to the Microsoft.VisualBasic assembly has to be added to the project. 
        using (TextFieldParser parser = new TextFieldParser(new StringReader(csv))) 
        {
            parser.CommentTokens = new string[] { "#" };
            parser.SetDelimiters(new string[] { ";" });
            parser.HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true;

            // Skip over header line.
            //parser.ReadLine();

            while (!parser.EndOfData)
            {
                var values = new List();

                var readFields = parser.ReadFields();
                if (readFields != null)
                    values.AddRange(readFields);
                result.Add(values);
            }
        }

        return result;
    }