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

I have written TinyCsvParser for .NET, which is one of the fastest .NET parsers around and highly configurable to parse almost any CSV format.

It is released under MIT License:

• https://github.com/bytefish/TinyCsvParser

You can use NuGet to install it. Run the following command in the Package Manager Console.

PM> Install-Package TinyCsvParser

Usage

Imagine we have list of Persons in a CSV file persons.csv with their first name, last name and birthdate.

FirstName;LastName;BirthDate
Philipp;Wagner;1986/05/12
Max;Musterman;2014/01/02

The corresponding domain model in our system might look like this.

private class Person
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    public DateTime BirthDate { get; set; }
}

When using TinyCsvParser you have to define the mapping between the columns in the CSV data and the property in you domain model.

private class CsvPersonMapping : CsvMapping
{

    public CsvPersonMapping()
        : base()
    {
        MapProperty(0, x => x.FirstName);
        MapProperty(1, x => x.LastName);
        MapProperty(2, x => x.BirthDate);
    }
}

And then we can use the mapping to parse the CSV data with a CsvParser.

namespace TinyCsvParser.Test
{
    [TestFixture]
    public class TinyCsvParserTest
    {
        [Test]
        public void TinyCsvTest()
        {
            CsvParserOptions csvParserOptions = new CsvParserOptions(true, new[] { ';' });
            CsvPersonMapping csvMapper = new CsvPersonMapping();
            CsvParser csvParser = new CsvParser(csvParserOptions, csvMapper);

            var result = csvParser
                .ReadFromFile(@"persons.csv", Encoding.ASCII)
                .ToList();

            Assert.AreEqual(2, result.Count);

            Assert.IsTrue(result.All(x => x.IsValid));

            Assert.AreEqual("Philipp", result[0].Result.FirstName);
            Assert.AreEqual("Wagner", result[0].Result.LastName);

            Assert.AreEqual(1986, result[0].Result.BirthDate.Year);
            Assert.AreEqual(5, result[0].Result.BirthDate.Month);
            Assert.AreEqual(12, result[0].Result.BirthDate.Day);

            Assert.AreEqual("Max", result[1].Result.FirstName);
            Assert.AreEqual("Mustermann", result[1].Result.LastName);

            Assert.AreEqual(2014, result[1].Result.BirthDate.Year);
            Assert.AreEqual(1, result[1].Result.BirthDate.Month);
            Assert.AreEqual(1, result[1].Result.BirthDate.Day);
        }
    }
}

User Guide

A full User Guide is available at:

• http://bytefish.github.io/TinyCsvParser/