FileHelpers and CSV: what to do when a record can expand unbounded, horizontally

Question

I\'m trying to parse this type of CSV file with FileHelpers:

Tom,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Steve,1,2,3
Bob,1,2,3,4,5,6
Cthulhu,1,2,3,4,5
Greg,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10         


        

Answer 1

You can use an Array Field and the library will do the work:

[DelimitedRecord(",")]
public class MyRecord
{
    public string Name;

    public int[] Values;
}

You can even use [FieldArrayLength(2, 8)]

[DelimitedRecord(",")]
public class MyRecord
{
    public string Name;

    [FieldArrayLength(2, 8)]
    public int[] Values;
}

The set the min/max number of values

I strongly recomend to download the last version of the library from here:

http://teamcity.codebetter.com/viewType.html?buildTypeId=bt65&tab=buildTypeStatusDiv

Check the artifacts section

Answer 2

You could create a class MyRecord that holds all the potential values, e.g.

[DelimitedRecord(",")]
public class MyRecord
{
    public string Name;
    public int Value1;
    .....
    [FieldOptional]
    public int Value5;
    ......
    [FieldOptional]
    [FieldNullValue(typeof(int), "-1" )]
    public int Value14;
}

and make most of those fields optional (no. 5 through 14 in my example) and combine that with e.g. a FieldNullValue to handle those non-existing fields (or make those optional fields a nullable int:

 public int? Value5