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

Another one to this list, Cinchoo ETL - an open source library to read and write multiple file formats (CSV, flat file, Xml, JSON etc)

Sample below shows how to read CSV file quickly (No POCO object required)

string csv = @"Id, Name
1, Carl
2, Tom
3, Mark";

using (var p = ChoCSVReader.LoadText(csv)
    .WithFirstLineHeader()
    )
{
    foreach (var rec in p)
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Id: {rec.Id}");
        Console.WriteLine($"Name: {rec.Name}");
    }
}

Sample below shows how to read CSV file using POCO object

public partial class EmployeeRec
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

static void CSVTest()
{
    string csv = @"Id, Name
1, Carl
2, Tom
3, Mark";

    using (var p = ChoCSVReader.LoadText(csv)
        .WithFirstLineHeader()
        )
    {
        foreach (var rec in p)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"Id: {rec.Id}");
            Console.WriteLine($"Name: {rec.Name}");
        }
    }
}

Please check out articles at CodeProject on how to use it.