Develop Reference

Removing formatting (\t\r) from a Stream Reader

I'm importing an .sql file that I created with SQLExplorer into my .NET program using StreamReader (which will eventually be passed through OdbcConnection, fyi.) The problem is that when I use the ReadToEnd() method it not only imports the SQL itself, but it imports all of the formatting. So the string is littered with \r and \t and the like.
I've been looking at both using split or possibly regex to break the string down and remove the unwanted bits and pieces. But before throwing a bunch of effort into that I wondered if there was perhaps something I'm missing in the StreamReader class? Is there a way to tell it to just ignore the formatting characters?
Here's the code I have right now:
public static Object SQLQueryFileCall(String SQLQueryFileName){
string SQLQuery = "";
string directory = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName( System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
SQLQueryFileName = directory + "\\" + SQLQueryFileName;
//read in the file and pass to ODBC, return a Object[] of whatever comes back...
try{
using (StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(SQLQueryFileName)) {
SQLQuery = myStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(SQLQuery);
}
}
catch (Exception e){
//Find the error
Console.WriteLine("File could not be read:");
string error = e.Message;
MessageBox.Show(error);
return null;
}
}
Feel free to offer any advice you might have on the code, seeing as I'm pretty new.
But yeah, mostly I'm just hoping there's a method in the StreamReader class that I'm just not understanding. I've gone to Microsoft's online documentation, and I feel I've given it a good look, but then again, I'm new and perhaps the concept skipped over my head?
Any help?
NOTE: There are multiple \t that are in the middle of some of the lines, and they do need to be removed. Hence using trim would...be tricky at least.

Well, myStreamReader.ReadToEnd(); will get you everything. The easiest way to get rid of most unneeded whitespace is to read it line-by-line and then simply .Trim() every line.
using (StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(SQLQueryFileName))
{
string line;
List<string> lines = new List<string();
while ((line = myStreamReader.ReadLine()) != null)
lines.Add(line.Trim());
SQLQuery = string.Join("\n", lines);
Console.WriteLine(SQLQuery);
}

SQL, by definition, shouldn't have a problem with whitespaces like tabs and newlines throughout code. Verify that your actual SQL is correct first.
Also, blindly stripping whitespace could potentially have an impact on textual data contained within your script; what happens if you have a string literal that contains a tab character?

using (StreamReader myStreamReader = new StreamReader(SQLQueryFileName))
{
while ((line = myStreamReader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
Console.WriteLine(line.Trim().Replace(#"\t"," ")
}
}
If it is a display and not content issue I think you could use WPF and a RichTextBox.

SQLQuery = Regex.Replace(SQLQuery, #"\t|\n|\r", "");
Better to use as you could remove content of SQL insertions:
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(fileName))
{
String line;
List<string> lines = new List<string();
while ((line = myStreamReader.ReadLine()) != null)
SQLQuery += line.Trim() + "\n";
}

This is what helped me in 2020, incase if someone is looking for this
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(stream))
{
return Regex.Replace(sr.ReadToEnd().Trim(), #"\s", "");
}

Displaying Text Content

Pretty simple one I hope. I have an article of text that I want to display in a window. Now rather than have this massive load of text in the centre of my code, can I add it as a Resource and read it out to the window somehow?
For those asking why, it's simply because it is a massive article and would be very ugly looking stuck in the middle of my code.
UPDATE FOR H.B.
I have tried a number of different approaches to this and am currently looking into the GetManifestResourceStream and using an embeddedResource (txt file) and writing that out to screen. Haven't finished testing it yet but if it works it would be a heck of a lot nicer than copying and pasting the entire text txtbox1.Text = "...blah blah blah".
_textStreamReader = new
StreamReader(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("Problem.Explaination.txt"));
try
{
if (_textStreamReader.Peek() != -1)
{
txtBlock.Text = _textStreamReader.ReadLine();
}
}
catch
{
MessageBox.Show("Error writing text!");
}
My query remains, is there a better way of achieving this (assuming this is even successful)
Thanks
NOTE
In my example above I only want one line of text. If you were adapting this to read a number of lines from a file you would change it like so;
StreamReader _textStreamReader;
_textStreamReader = new StreamReader(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("Problem.Explaination.txt"));
var fileContents = _textStreamReader.ReadToEnd();
_textStreamReader.Close();
String[] lines = fileContents.Split("\n"[0]);
String[] lines2;
Int16 count;
foreach (string line in lines)
{
txtBlock.Text += line;
}

Add the file as a resource and, in your code, load it into a string.
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (var stream = this.GetType().Assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("MyNamespace.TextFile.txt"))
using(var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
string line;
while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
sb.AppendLine(line);
}
}
ViewModel.Text = sb.ToString();

You could place that text in a text file, and read it out in code
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/db5x7c0d.aspx

How to read an entire file to a string using C#?

What is the quickest way to read a text file into a string variable?
I understand it can be done in several ways, such as read individual bytes and then convert those to string. I was looking for a method with minimal coding.

How about File.ReadAllText:
string contents = File.ReadAllText(#"C:\temp\test.txt");

A benchmark comparison of File.ReadAllLines vs StreamReader ReadLine from C# file handling
Results. StreamReader is much faster for large files with 10,000+
lines, but the difference for smaller files is negligible. As always,
plan for varying sizes of files, and use File.ReadAllLines only when
performance isn't critical.
StreamReader approach
As the File.ReadAllText approach has been suggested by others, you can also try the quicker (I have not tested quantitatively the performance impact, but it appears to be faster than File.ReadAllText (see comparison below)). The difference in performance will be visible only in case of larger files though.
string readContents;
using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(path, Encoding.UTF8))
{
readContents = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
}
Comparison of File.Readxxx() vs StreamReader.Readxxx()
Viewing the indicative code through ILSpy I have found the following about File.ReadAllLines, File.ReadAllText.
File.ReadAllText - Uses StreamReader.ReadToEnd internally
File.ReadAllLines - Also uses StreamReader.ReadLine internally with the additionally overhead of creating the List<string> to return as the read lines and looping till the end of file.
So both the methods are an additional layer of convenience built on top of StreamReader. This is evident by the indicative body of the method.
File.ReadAllText() implementation as decompiled by ILSpy
public static string ReadAllText(string path)
{
if (path == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("path");
}
if (path.Length == 0)
{
throw new ArgumentException(Environment.GetResourceString("Argument_EmptyPath"));
}
return File.InternalReadAllText(path, Encoding.UTF8);
}
private static string InternalReadAllText(string path, Encoding encoding)
{
string result;
using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(path, encoding))
{
result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
}
return result;
}

string contents = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(path)
Here's the MSDN documentation

For the noobs out there who find this stuff fun and interesting, the fastest way to read an entire file into a string in most cases (according to these benchmarks) is by the following:
using (StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(fileName))
{
string s = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
//you then have to process the string
However, the absolute fastest to read a text file overall appears to be the following:
using (StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(fileName))
{
string s = String.Empty;
while ((s = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
//do what you have to here
}
}
Put up against several other techniques, it won out most of the time, including against the BufferedReader.

Take a look at the File.ReadAllText() method
Some important remarks:
This method opens a file, reads each line of the file, and then adds
each line as an element of a string. It then closes the file. A line
is defined as a sequence of characters followed by a carriage return
('\r'), a line feed ('\n'), or a carriage return immediately followed
by a line feed. The resulting string does not contain the terminating
carriage return and/or line feed.
This method attempts to automatically detect the encoding of a file
based on the presence of byte order marks. Encoding formats UTF-8 and
UTF-32 (both big-endian and little-endian) can be detected.
Use the ReadAllText(String, Encoding) method overload when reading
files that might contain imported text, because unrecognized
characters may not be read correctly.
The file handle is guaranteed to be closed by this method, even if
exceptions are raised

string text = File.ReadAllText("Path"); you have all text in one string variable. If you need each line individually you can use this:
string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("Path");

System.IO.StreamReader myFile =
new System.IO.StreamReader("c:\\test.txt");
string myString = myFile.ReadToEnd();

if you want to pick file from Bin folder of the application then you can try following and don't forget to do exception handling.
string content = File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine(System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory(), #"FilesFolder\Sample.txt"));

#Cris sorry .This is quote MSDN Microsoft
Methodology
In this experiment, two classes will be compared. The StreamReader and the FileStream class will be directed to read two files of 10K and 200K in their entirety from the application directory.
StreamReader (VB.NET)
sr = New StreamReader(strFileName)
Do
line = sr.ReadLine()
Loop Until line Is Nothing
sr.Close()
FileStream (VB.NET)
Dim fs As FileStream
Dim temp As UTF8Encoding = New UTF8Encoding(True)
Dim b(1024) As Byte
fs = File.OpenRead(strFileName)
Do While fs.Read(b, 0, b.Length) > 0
temp.GetString(b, 0, b.Length)
Loop
fs.Close()
Result
FileStream is obviously faster in this test. It takes an additional 50% more time for StreamReader to read the small file. For the large file, it took an additional 27% of the time.
StreamReader is specifically looking for line breaks while FileStream does not. This will account for some of the extra time.
Recommendations
Depending on what the application needs to do with a section of data, there may be additional parsing that will require additional processing time. Consider a scenario where a file has columns of data and the rows are CR/LF delimited. The StreamReader would work down the line of text looking for the CR/LF, and then the application would do additional parsing looking for a specific location of data. (Did you think String. SubString comes without a price?)
On the other hand, the FileStream reads the data in chunks and a proactive developer could write a little more logic to use the stream to his benefit. If the needed data is in specific positions in the file, this is certainly the way to go as it keeps the memory usage down.
FileStream is the better mechanism for speed but will take more logic.

well the quickest way meaning with the least possible C# code is probably this one:
string readText = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(path);

you can use :
public static void ReadFileToEnd()
{
try
{
//provide to reader your complete text file
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("TestFile.txt"))
{
String line = sr.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(line);
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine("The file could not be read:");
Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}
}

string content = System.IO.File.ReadAllText( #"C:\file.txt" );

You can use like this
public static string ReadFileAndFetchStringInSingleLine(string file)
{
StringBuilder sb;
try
{
sb = new StringBuilder();
using (FileStream fs = File.Open(file, FileMode.Open))
{
using (BufferedStream bs = new BufferedStream(fs))
{
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(bs))
{
string str;
while ((str = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
sb.Append(str);
}
}
}
}
return sb.ToString();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return "";
}
}
Hope this will help you.

you can read a text from a text file in to string as follows also
string str = "";
StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(Application.StartupPath + "\\Sample.txt");
while(sr.Peek() != -1)
{
str = str + sr.ReadLine();
}

I made a comparison between a ReadAllText and StreamBuffer for a 2Mb csv and it seemed that the difference was quite small but ReadAllText seemed to take the upper hand from the times taken to complete functions.

I'd highly recommend using the File.ReadLines(path) compare to StreamReader or any other File reading methods. Please find below the detailed performance benchmark for both small-size file and large-size file.
I hope this would help.
File operations read result:
For small file (just 8 lines)
For larger file (128465 lines)
Readlines Example:
public void ReadFileUsingReadLines()
{
var contents = File.ReadLines(path);
}
Note : Benchmark is done in .NET 6.

This comment is for those who are trying to read the complete text file in winform using c++ with the help of C# ReadAllText function
using namespace System::IO;
String filename = gcnew String(charfilename);
if(System::IO::File::Exists(filename))
{
String ^ data = gcnew String(System::IO::File::RealAllText(filename)->Replace("\0", Environment::Newline));
textBox1->Text = data;
}

Removing the first line of a text file in C#

I can currently remove the last line of a text file using:
var lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines("test.txt");
System.IO.File.WriteAllLines("test.txt", lines.Take(lines.Length - 1).ToArray());
Although, how is it possible to instead remove the beginning of the text file?

Instead of lines.Take, you can use lines.Skip, like:
var lines = File.ReadAllLines("test.txt");
File.WriteAllLines("test.txt", lines.Skip(1).ToArray());
to truncate at the beginning despite the fact that the technique used (read all text and write everything back) is very inefficient.
About the efficient way: The inefficiency comes from the necessity to read the whole file into memory. The other way around could easily be to seek in a stream and copy the stream to another output file, delete the original, and rename the old. That one would be equally fast and yet consume much less memory.
Truncating a file at the end is much easier. You can just find the trunaction position and call FileStream.SetLength().

Here is an alternative:
using (var stream = File.OpenRead("C:\\yourfile"))
{
var items = new LinkedList<string>();
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
reader.ReadLine(); // skip one line
string line;
while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
//it's far better to do the actual processing here
items.AddLast(line);
}
}
}
Update
If you need an IEnumerable<string> and don't want to waste memory you could do something like this:
public static IEnumerable<string> GetFileLines(string filename)
{
using (var stream = File.OpenRead(filename))
{
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
reader.ReadLine(); // skip one line
string line;
while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
{
yield return line;
}
}
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
foreach (var line in GetFileLines("C:\\yourfile.txt"))
{
// do something with the line here.
}
}

var lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines("test.txt");
System.IO.File.WriteAllLines("test.txt", lines.Skip(1).ToArray());
Skip eliminates the given number of elements from the beginning of the sequence. Take eliminates all but the given number of elements from the end of the sequence.

To remove fist line from a text file
System.IO.StreamReader file = new System.IO.StreamReader(filePath);
string data = file.ReadToEnd();
file.Close();
data = Regex.Replace(data, "<.*\n", "");
System.IO.StreamWriter file = new System.IO.StreamWriter(filePath, false);
file.Write(data);
file.Close();

can do in one line also
File.WriteAllLines(origialFilePath,File.ReadAllLines(originalFilePath).Skip(1));
Assuming you are passing your filePath as parameter to the function.

Best way to write huge string into a file

In C#, I'm reading a moderate size of file (100 KB ~ 1 MB), modifying some parts of the content, and finally writing to a different file. All contents are text. Modification is done as string objects and string operations. My current approach is:
Read each line from the original file by using StreamReader.
Open a StringBuilder for the contents of the new file.
Modify the string object and call AppendLine of the StringBuilder (until the end of the file)
Open a new StreamWriter, and write the StringBuilder to the write stream.
However, I've found that StremWriter.Write truncates 32768 bytes (2^16), but the length of StringBuilder is greater than that. I could write a simple loop to guarantee entire string to a file. But, I'm wondering what would be the most efficient way in C# for doing this task?
To summarize, I'd like to modify only some parts of a text file and write to a different file. But, the text file size could be larger than 32768 bytes.
== Answer == I'm sorry to make confusin to you! It was just I didn't call flush. StremWriter.Write does not have a short (e.g., 2^16) limitation.

StreamWriter.Write
does not
truncate the string and has no limitation.
Internally it uses String.CopyTo which on the other hand uses unsafe code (using fixed) to copy chars so it is the most efficient.

The problem is most likely related to not closing the writer. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.streamwriter.flush.aspx.
But I would suggest not loading the whole file in memory if that can be avoided.

can you try this :
void Test()
{
using (var inputFile = File.OpenText(#"c:\in.txt"))
{
using (var outputFile = File.CreateText(#"c:\out.txt"))
{
string current;
while ((current = inputFile.ReadLine()) != null)
{
outputFile.WriteLine(Process(current));
}
}
}
}
string Process(string current)
{
return current.ToLower();
}
It avoid to have to full file loaded in memory, by processing line by line and writing it directly

Well, that entirely depends on what you want to modify. If your modifications of one part of the text file are dependent on another part of the text file, you obviously need to have both of those parts in memory. If however, you only need to modify the text file on a line-by-line basis then use something like this :
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(#"test.txt"))
{
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(#"modifiedtest.txt"))
{
while (!sr.EndOfStream)
{
string line = sr.ReadLine();
//do some modifications
sw.WriteLine(line);
sw.Flush(); //force line to be written to disk
}
}
}

Instead of of running though the hole dokument i would use a regex to find what you are looking for Sample:
public List<string> GetAllProfiles()
{
List<string> profileNames = new List<string>();
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(_folderLocation + "profiles.pg"))
{
string profiles = reader.ReadToEnd();
var regex = new Regex("\nname=([^\r]{0,})", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
var regexMatchs = regex.Matches(profiles);
profileNames.AddRange(from Match regexMatch in regexMatchs select regexMatch.Groups[1].Value);
}
return profileNames;
}