Column headers in CSV using fileHelpers library? - c#

Is there a built-in field attribute in the FileHelper library which will add a header row in the final generated CSV?
I have Googled and didn't find much info on it. Currently I have this:
DelimitedFileEngine _engine = new DelimitedFileEngine(T);
_engine.WriteStream
(HttpContext.Current.Response.Output, dataSource, int.MaxValue);
It works, but without a header.
I'm thinking of having an attribute like FieldTitleAttribute and using this as a column header.
So, my question is at which point do I check the attribute and insert header columns? Has anyone done something similar before?
I would like to get the headers inserted and use custom text different from the actual field name just by having an attribute on each member of the object:
[FieldTitleAttribute("Custom Title")]
private string Name
and maybe an option to tell the engine to insert the header when it's generated.
So when WriteStream or WriteString is called, the header row will be inserted with custom titles.
I have found a couple of Events for DelimitedFileEngine, but not what's the best way to detect if the current record is the first row and how to insert a row before this.

I know this is an old question, but here is an answer that works for v2.9.9
FileHelperEngine<Person> engine = new FileHelperEngine<Person>();
engine.HeaderText = engine.GetFileHeader();

Here's some code that'll do it: https://gist.github.com/1391429
To use it, you must decorate your fields with [FieldOrder] (a good FileHelpers practice anyway). Usage:
[DelimitedRecord(","), IgnoreFirst(1)]
public class Person
{
// Must specify FieldOrder too
[FieldOrder(1), FieldTitle("Name")]
string name;
[FieldOrder(2), FieldTitle("Age")]
int age;
}
...
var engine = new FileHelperEngine<Person>
{
HeaderText = typeof(Person).GetCsvHeader()
};
...
engine.WriteFile(#"C:\people.csv", people);
But support for this really needs to be added within FileHelpers itself. I can think of a few design questions off the top of my head that would need answering before it could be implemented:
What happens when reading a file? Afaik FileHelpers is currently all based on ordinal column position and ignores column names... but if we now have [FieldHeader] attributes everywhere then should we also try matching properties with column names in the file? Should you throw an exception if they don't match? What happens if the ordinal position doesn't agree with the column name?
When reading as a data table, should you use A) the field name (current design), or B) the source file column name, or C) the FieldTitle attribute?

I don't know if you still need this, but here is the way FileHelper is working :
To include headers of columns, you need to define a string with headers delimited the same way as your file.
For example with '|' as delimiter :
public const string HeaderLine = #"COLUMN1|COLUMN2|COLUMN3|...";
Then, when calling your engine :
DelimitedFileEngine _engine = new DelimitedFileEngine<T> { HeaderText = HeaderLine };
If you don't want to write the headers, just don't set the HeaderText attribute on the engine.

List<MyClass> myList = new List<MyClass>();
FileHelperEngine engine = new FileHelperEngine(typeof(MyClass));
String[] fieldNames = Array.ConvertAll<FieldInfo, String>(typeof(MyClass).GetFields(), delegate(FieldInfo fo) { return fo.Name; });
engine.HeaderText = String.Join(";", fieldNames);
engine.WriteFile(MapPath("MyClass.csv"), myList);

Just to include a more complete example, which would have saved me some time, for version 3.4.1 of the FileHelpers NuGet package....
Given
[DelimitedRecord(",")]
public class Person
{
[FieldCaption("First")]
public string FirstName { get; set; }
[FieldCaption("Last")]
public string LastName { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
and this code to create it
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var people = new List<Person>();
people.Add(new Person() { FirstName = "James", LastName = "Bond", Age = 38 });
people.Add(new Person() { FirstName = "George", LastName = "Washington", Age = 43 });
people.Add(new Person() { FirstName = "Robert", LastName = "Redford", Age = 28 });
CreatePeopleFile(people);
}
private static void CreatePeopleFile(List<Person> people)
{
var engine = new FileHelperEngine<Person>();
using (var fs = File.Create(#"c:\temp\people.csv"))
using (var sw = new StreamWriter(fs))
{
engine.HeaderText = engine.GetFileHeader();
engine.WriteStream(sw, people);
sw.Flush();
}
}
You get this
First,Last,Age
James,Bond,38
George,Washington,43
Robert,Redford,28

I found that you can use the FileHelperAsyncEngine to accomplish this. Assuming your data is a list called "output" of type "outputData", then you can write code that looks like this:
FileHelperAsyncEngine outEngine = new FileHelperAsyncEngine(typeof(outputData));
outEngine.HeaderText = "Header1, Header2, Header3";
outEngine.BeginWriteFile(outputfile);
foreach (outputData line in output){
outEngine.WriteNext(line);
}
outEngine.Close();

You can simply use FileHelper's GetFileHeader function from base class
var engine = new FileHelperEngine<ExportType>();
engine.HeaderText = engine.GetFileHeader();
engine.WriteFile(exportFile, exportData);

Related

Sorting List Array based on an index of array

I want to sort a List Array on the basis of an array item.
I have a List Array of Strings as below:
List<String>[] MyProjects = new List<String>[20];
Through a loop, I have added five strings
(Id, Name, StartDate, EndDate, Status)
to each of the 20 projects from another detailed List source.
for(int i = 0; i<20; i++){
MyProjects[i].Add(DetailedProjectList.Id.ToString());
MyProjects[i].Add(DetailedProjectList.Name);
MyProjects[i].Add(DetailedProjectList.StartDate);
MyProjects[i].Add(DetailedProjectList.EndDate);
MyProjects[i].Add(DetailedProjectList.Status)}
The Status values are
"Slow", "Normal", "Fast", "Suspended" and "" for unknown status.
Based on Status, I want to sort MyProject List Array.
What I have done is that I have created another List as below
List<string> sortProjectsBy = new List<string>(){"Slow", "Normal", "Fast", "", "Suspended"};
I tried as below to sort, however unsuccessful.
MyProjects = MyProjects.OrderBy(x => sortProjectsBy.IndexOf(4));
Can anyone hint in the right direction. Thanks.
I suggest you to create class Project and then add all the fields inside it you need. It's much nicer and scalable in the future. Then create a List or an Array of projects and use the OrderBy() function to sort based on the field you want.
List<Project> projects = new List<>();
// Fill the list...
projects.OrderBy(project => project.Status);
The field Status has to be a primitive type or needs to implement the interface IComparable in order for the sorting to work. I suggest you add an enum for Status with int values.
First consider maybe to use Enum for status and put it in a different file lite (utils or something) - better to work like that.
enum Status {"Slow"=1, "Normal", "Fast", "", "Suspend"}
Now about the filtering you want to achieve do it like this (you need to tell which attribute of x you are referring to. In this case is status)
MyProjects = MyProjects.OrderBy(x => x.status == enum.Suspend);
Read about enums :
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/keywords/enum
Read about lambda expressions :
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/statements-expressions-operators/lambda-expressions
First of all, storing project details as List is not adivisable. You need to create a Custom Class to represent them.
For example,
public class DetailedProjectList
{
public string Name {get;set;}
public eStatus Status {get;set;}
// rest of properties
}
Then You can use
var result = MyProjects.OrderBy(x=> sortProjectsBy.IndexOf(x.Status));
For example
List<string> sortProjectsBy = new List<string>(){"Slow", "Normal", "Fast", "", "Suspended"};
var MyProjects= new List<DetailedProjectList>{
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc1", Status="Fast"},
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc2", Status="Normal"},
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc3", Status="Slow"},
};
var result = MyProjects.OrderBy(x=> sortProjectsBy.IndexOf(x.Status));
Output
abc3 Slow
abc2 Normal
abc1 Fast
A better approach thought would be to use Enum to represent Status.
public enum eStatus
{
Slow,
Normal,
Fast,
Unknown,
Suspended
}
Then your code can be simplified as
var MyProjects= new List<DetailedProjectList>{
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc1", Status=eStatus.Fast},
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc2", Status=eStatus.Normal},
new DetailedProjectList{Name="abc3", Status=eStatus.Slow},
};
var result = MyProjects.OrderBy(x=> x.Status);
Ok so you have a collection of 20 items. Based on them you need to create a list of strings(20 DetailedProjectList items).
What you can do to solve your problem is to SORT YOUR COLLECTION before you create your list of strings. In this way your list of strings will be sorted.
But your code is not optimal at all. So you should concider optimization on many levels.
Lets say you have ProjectDetail class as follow:
private class ProjectDetail
{
public int Id {get;set;}
public string Name {get;set;}
DateTime StartDate {get;set;} = DateTime.Now;
DateTime EndDate {get;set;} = DateTime.Now;
public string Status {get;set;}
public string toString => $"{Id} - {Name} - {StartDate} - {EndDate} - {Status}";
}
Notice that I have added a toString attribute to make things easier, and I also have added default values.
Then your program could be like:
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var projectDetails = MockProjectItems();
Console.WriteLine("Before sortig:");
foreach (var item in projectDetails)
{
Console.WriteLine(item.toString);
}
var myProjects = projectDetails.OrderBy(p => p.Status).Select(p => p.toString);
Console.WriteLine("\n\nAfter sorting:");
foreach (var item in myProjects)
{
Console.WriteLine(item);
}
}
where the helper method is
private static List<ProjectDetail> MockProjectItems()
{
var items = new List<ProjectDetail>(20);
for(int i = 0; i < 20 ; i += 4){
items.Add(new ProjectDetail{Id = i, Name = "RandomName "+i, Status = "Slow"});
items.Add(new ProjectDetail{Id = i+1, Name = "RandomName "+(i+1), Status = "Normal"});
items.Add(new ProjectDetail{Id = i+2, Name = "RandomName "+(i+2), Status = "Fast"});
items.Add(new ProjectDetail{Id = i+3, Name = "RandomName "+(i+3), Status = "Suspended"});
}
return items;
}
Then your program should print the following:

Load data from txt file to comboBox

Hi i have this structure of txt file:
Lukas 1
Zdenek 3
Martin 2
Kate 1
And i need load this data...the name i need load to comboBox...and when i choose from ComboBox for example Lukas, i need to save Name Lukas to variable Name and number 1 to variable Number...
It is possible?
I have this code now...
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(#"C:\Us...nka\example.txt"))
{
string data = "";
data = reader.ReadToEnd().Trim();
}
But i need read separately Name and separately Number...Have you any ideas? Thanks..
You can use File.ReadLines and String.Split:
var lines = File.ReadLines(#"C:\Us...nka\example.txt");
var data = lines.Select(l => l.Split());
I would use a class to store both properties:
public class Person
{
public int PersonID { get; set; }
public string PersonName { get; set; }
}
Now you can load the persons in a loop or with LINQ:
List<Person> allPersons = data
.Where(arr => arr.Length >= 2 && arr[1].Trim().All(Char.IsDigit))
.Select(arr => new Person
{
PersonName = arr[0].Trim(),
PersonID = int.Parse(arr[1].Trim())
})
.ToList();
Edit:
Yes thanks...but i cant load PersonsName to combobox
You can use a BindingSource for the ComboBox. Then set the DisplayMember and ValueMember properties accordingly:
var bindingSourcePersons = new BindingSource();
bindingSourcePersons.DataSource = allPersons;
personComboBox.DataSource = bindingSourcePersons.DataSource;
personComboBox.ValueMember = "PersonID";
personComboBox.DisplayMember = "PersonName";
First create a class like this:
public class Person {
public string Name {get;set;}
public int Number {get;set;}
}
then you can use Linq to convert the string you read like this:
var people = data
.Split(new {'\r','\n'}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
.Select(d => new Person { Name = d.Split(' ')[0], Value = int.Parse(d.Split(' ')[1])})
.ToList();
Or better you could read your data line by line, like this:
var people = from l in File.ReadLines(#"C:\Us...nka\example.txt")
let parts = l.Split(' ')
select new Person {
Name = parts[0].Trim(),
Value = int.Parse(parts[1].Trim())
};
here is a pseudo:
while the reader is not EndOfStream
read current line
split the line that was just read into a string[] array, the separator being a space
first item in the array would be the name and the second item in the array would be the number.
then you add the item in the combo box. The combobox has an Items collection and an add method, which just takes a System.Object.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa983551(v=vs.71).aspx

Get a single element of CSV file

I'm trying to add some csv elements to a list of Alimento, where Alimento is declared as:
namespace ContaCarboidrati
{
class Alimento
{
public virtual string Codice { get; set; }
public virtual string Descrizione { get; set; }
public virtual int Carboidrati { get; set; }
}
}
My csv looks something like this:
"C00, Pasta, 75".
Here's the method that should create the list from the csv:
private static List<Alimento> CreaListaAlimentiDaCsv()
{
List<Alimento> listaCsv = new List<Alimento>();
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(#"C:\Users\Alex\Documents\RecordAlimenti.csv");
string abc = sr.ReadLine();
//listaCsv = abc.Split(",");
}
abc is "C00, Pasta, 75". I want to get a single element to add it to the list, or add all the 3 elements to the list, i thought that a single element is easier to made.
Sorry for my bad English
Thanks in advance
Alex
You are on the right track, but you cannot just create an Alimento of three strings, which is what you will get if you do abc.Split(","). You need to create a new Alimento object for each item (line) in the csv file and initialize each object correctly. Something like this:
var item = abc.Split(',');
listaCsv.Add(new Alimento() { Codice = item[0], Descrizione = item[1],
Carboidrati = int.Parse(item[2])};
Also, your csv seems to include spaces after the commas which you might want to get rid of. You could use string.Trim() to get rid of leading/trailing spaces. You also have to make sure the third item is actually an integer and take action if that is not the case (i.e. add some error handling).
As a side note, implementing a csv reader is not as trivial as one may think, but there are several free C# implementations out there. If you need something a bit more advanced than just reading a simple (and strictly one-line-per-item) csv, try one of these:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9258/A-Fast-CSV-Reader
http://www.filehelpers.com/
You can parse file with LINQ
var listaCsv = (from line in File.ReadAllLines("RecordAlimenti.csv")
let items = line.Split(',')
select new Alimento {
Codice = items[0],
Descrizione = items[1],
Carboidrati = Int32.Parse(items[2])
}).ToList();
You can parse it pretty easy assuming your data isn't bad.
private IEnumerable<Alimento> CreaListaAlimentiDaCsv(string fileName)
{
return File.Readlines(fileName) //#"C:\Users\Alex\Documents\RecordAlimenti.csv"
.Select(line => line.Split(',').Trim())
.Select(
values =>
new Alimento
{
Codice = value[0],
Descrizione = values[0],
Carboidrati = Convert.ToInt32(values[3])
});
}
You can also use Linq on the method such as
//Takes one line without iterating the entire file
CreaListaAlimentiDaCsv(#"C:\Users\Alex\Documents\RecordAlimenti.csv").Take(1);
//Skips the first line and takes the second line reading two lines total
CreaListaAlimentiDaCsv(#"C:\Users\Alex\Documents\RecordAlimenti.csv").Skip(1).Take(1);

Read column headers in CSV using fileHelpers library

I have a CSV file where the headers indicate in which order the information is going to appear in the detail lines. An example would be:
COLUMN1,COLUMN2,COLUMN3
VALUE1,VALUE2,VALUE3
but could also be
COLUMN2,COLUMN3,COLUMN1
VALUE2,VALUE3,VALUE1
The class would look like this
public class CSVImportLineItem
{
public string Column1 {get; set;}
public string Column2 {get; set;}
public string Column3 {get; set;}
}
Is there a way (using FileHelpers) to read the headers in and then determine the mapping to the properties based on the header order?
Any reason why you have to specifically use the FileHelpers library?
//Use File.ReadAllLines();
List<string> lines = new List<string>() { "Column1, Column2, Column3", "1,2,3" };
var cols = lines.First().Split(',');
List<CSVImportLineItem> imported = new List<CSVImportLineItem>();
var v = lines.Skip(1).ToList().Select(line =>
{
CSVImportLineItem item = new CSVImportLineItem();
var values = line.Split(',');
for (int i = 0; i < cols.Count(); i++)
{
item.GetType().GetProperty(cols[i].Trim()).SetValue(item, values[i], null);
}
return item;
}).ToList();
You can use the one of the ClassBuilder helper classes.
DelimitedClassBuilder cb = new DelimitedClassBuilder("LineItem");
// First field
cb.AddField("Column2", typeof(string));
// Second field
cb.AddField("Column1", typeof(string));
// Third field
cb.AddField("Column3", typeof(string));
engine = new FileHelperEngine(cb.CreateRecordClass());
LineItem[] lineItems = engine.ReadFile("FileIn.txt") as LineItem[];
You can change the order of the fields based on the contents of the first line (which you can read outside of FileHelpers).
See also, the answer here.

exporting a comma separated values text file to use in excel

In my C# winforms program I want to make an export function that will create a comma separated text file or csv. I am not sure about the logic of how to do this the best way. My exported file will be like this :
Family Name, First Name, Sex, Age
Dekker, Sean, Male, 23
Doe, John, Male, 40
So the first line I want to be the name of the columns, and the rest should be treated as values. Is it ok in this way for later usage? Or I should not include column names?
Would be nice to hear your experiences about this!
Sean,
sorry don't have enough privilege points to comment directly on your post. I think you may be confusing CSV and Excel files here. A CSV is simply a text file where each value is separated by a comma, there is no special formating etc. Excel will display CSV files since it knows how to open them but you can just as easily open them in notepad.
Excel .xslx files are different and can contain all sorts of different formats, charts etc. To format these files its important to understand that .xslx files are essentially zips. So the first place to start is to create an excel file with some data, save it and then rename the extension to .zip
Open the zip file created now and you will see a number of different folders and files, of these the most important for your purposes is the XL directory. In this folder you will see a shared strings xml file and a worksheets folder.
Lets start by going into the worksheet folder and opening sheet1.xml. Look for the line that says "
If there is text in this column, i.e. data that excel should read as text then you will have something like 0. This indicates that cell A1 is of type string t="s" and that the value is to be found as the first value in the SharedStrings.xml file 0
If there is a number in the cell then you may have something like 234. In this case Excel knows to use the value 234 in this cell.
So in your case you will need to do the following:
1: create the excel document in C# - there are a number of libraries available for this
2: Open the excel file as a zip
3: Modify in your case the styles and worksheets xml files
4: Save the document
That is absolutely fine to do (to state the obvious....). Excel has a little checkbox that allows the user importing to use the first line as column headers if they select it.
I would also suggest that you leave out the spaces at the start of each piece of data, it isn't necessary.
In general its best practice to include the column headers, the only reason not to do so would be an external program over which you have no control accessing your data which doesn't realise that the first row are the column headers and which can't be changed.
To create the export function something like this should work:
private static List<Person> people = new List<Person>();
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// add some people
people.Add(
new Person() { firstName = "John", familyName = "Smith", sex = Sex.Male, age = 12 }
);
people.Add(
new Person() { firstName = "Mary", familyName = "Doe", sex = Sex.Female, age = 25 }
);
// write the data
Write();
}
static void Write()
{
using (TextWriter tw = new StreamWriter(#"c:\junk1\test.csv", false))
{
// write the header
tw.WriteLine("Family Name, First Name, Sex, Age");
// write the details
foreach(Person person in people)
{
tw.WriteLine(String.Format("{0}, {1}, {2}, {3}", person.familyName, person.firstName, person.sex.ToString(), person.age.ToString()));
}
}
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Applicable sexes
/// </summary>
public enum Sex
{
Male,
Female
}
/// <summary>
/// holds details about a person
/// </summary>
public class Person
{
public string familyName { get; set; }
public string firstName { get; set; }
public Sex sex { get; set; }
public int age { get; set; }
}
You can use Dataset to do this.
Please refer here
//Why not save the lines to a List<string> object, first List<sting>Object.Add//("your headers"), use the string.Join("," "your Header Array string[]" do not add //(+",") the .Join extension menthod will handle that for you.
// here is an example
//if you were to retreive the header values from a database using a SQL Reader
var reader = sqlcmdSomeQueryCommand.ExecuteReader();
var columns = new List<string>();
//get all the field names from the Columns var
for (int intCounter = 0; intCounter < reader.FieldCount; intCounter++)
{
columns.Add(reader.GetName(intCounter));
}
strarryTmpString = columns.ToArray();
string TmpFields = string.Join(", ", strarryTmpString);
columns.Clear();
columns.Add(TmpFields);
//you can save the TmpFieldList to later add the rest of your comma delimited fields
write line by line in a foreach loop or use the List<string> object .foreach(delegate(string delString)
{
someStreamWriterObject.WriteLine(delString)
});

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