Recreate a comma delimited file without the commas

Question

2.50/5 (2 votes)

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Hey all,

I'm totally new to C# and am trying to read a comma delimited file into a fileStream, replace the commas with spaces and output the fileStream into a new file. When I use this code however the output seems to be encoded. Any ideas what I'm missing? Can anyone suggest an easier way of doing this, as I say I'm a total newbie to the language:

C#

private void Read_File(object Sender, EventArgs e)
{
     FileStream fileStream = new FileStream("C:\\commas.txt", FileMode.Open);
     String data = "";
     String data2 = "";
     byte[] bytes = new byte[fileStream.Length];
     try
     {
          using (var sr = new StreamReader(fileStream, Encoding.Unicode)) 
         { 
             data = sr.ReadToEnd(); 
         }
         for (int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++)
         {
             if (data.ElementAt(i).Equals(","))
             {
                 data2 = data2 + " ";
             }
             else
             {
                 data2 = data2 + data.ElementAt(i);
             }
          }
          File.WriteAllText("C:\\nocommas.txt", data2); 
      }
      finally
      {
          fileStream.Close();
      }
  }

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Stephen.

Posted 19-Oct-12 5:24am

Steve 2712

Updated 19-Oct-12 5:27am

fjdiewornncalwe

v2

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Comments

[no name] 19-Oct-12 11:29am

Use string.Replace instead. What is that you mean that the output is "encoded"?

Zasky 19-Oct-12 11:40am

You're reading the file as unicode, which is probably isn't. That's why the output looks 'encoded'.

3 solutions

Solution 1

Since you are working with Plain Text stuff, you could use a TextReader and TextWriter instead. That would be the simple way. You can also just use a simple yourCurrentLine.Replace(",", " ") call to perform the conversion.
If your file is really large, use the ReadLine approach, if the file is guaranteed to be of a reasonable length, then you can use the ReadToEnd approach.
MSDN Documentation for TextWriter[^]

Posted 19-Oct-12 5:28am

fjdiewornncalwe

Updated 19-Oct-12 5:30am

v3

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 19-Oct-12 19:13pm

Marcus,

This time you are mixing up something. StreamReader is already derived from TextReader, and same goes about the writers. Not the other way around. So using these classes is coeeect. This is somewhat counter-intuitive naming, but it caught you.
--SA

fjdiewornncalwe 19-Oct-12 19:17pm

D'oh..

Solution 3

Thanks very much Marcus and ProgramFOX. I knew I was overcomplicating this as it seems such a simple concept. Thanks again.

Stephen.

Posted 19-Oct-12 5:40am

Steve 2712

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Thomas Daniels · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-19T05:31:00

You can do it with this code:

C#

private void Read_File(object Sender, EventArgs e)
{
  string contentOfFileWithCommas = File.ReadAllText("C:\\commas.txt",Encoding.UTF8);
  string contentOfFileWithoutCommas = contentOfFileWithCommas.Replace(",", " ");
  File.WriteAllText("C:\\nocommas.txt",contentOfFileWithoutCommas,Encoding.UTF8);
}

Hope this helps.