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

Here is my KISS implementation...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;

class CsvParser
{
    public static List Parse(string line)
    {
        const char escapeChar = '"';
        const char splitChar = ',';
        bool inEscape = false;
        bool priorEscape = false;

        List result = new List();
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        for (int i = 0; i < line.Length; i++)
        {
            char c = line[i];
            switch (c)
            {
                case escapeChar:
                    if (!inEscape)
                        inEscape = true;
                    else
                    {
                        if (!priorEscape)
                        {
                            if (i + 1 < line.Length && line[i + 1] == escapeChar)
                                priorEscape = true;
                            else
                                inEscape = false;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            sb.Append(c);
                            priorEscape = false;
                        }
                    }
                    break;
                case splitChar:
                    if (inEscape) //if in escape
                        sb.Append(c);
                    else
                    {
                        result.Add(sb.ToString());
                        sb.Length = 0;
                    }
                    break;
                default:
                    sb.Append(c);
                    break;
            }
        }

        if (sb.Length > 0)
            result.Add(sb.ToString());

        return result;
    }

}