How to read a CSV file into a .NET Datatable

Question

How can I load a CSV file into a System.Data.DataTable, creating the datatable based on the CSV file?

Does the regular ADO.net functionality allow this?

Answer 1

I have decided to use Sebastien Lorion's Csv Reader.

Jay Riggs suggestion is a great solution also, but I just didn't need all of the features that that Andrew Rissing's Generic Parser provides.

UPDATE 10/25/2010

After using Sebastien Lorion's Csv Reader in my project for nearly a year and a half, I have found that it throws exceptions when parsing some csv files that I believe to be well formed.

So, I did switch to Andrew Rissing's Generic Parser and it seems to be doing much better.

UPDATE 9/22/2014

These days, I mostly use this extension method to read delimited text:

https://github.com/Core-Techs/Common/blob/master/CoreTechs.Common/Text/DelimitedTextExtensions.cs#L22

https://www.nuget.org/packages/CoreTechs.Common/

UPDATE 2/20/2015

Example:

var csv = @"Name, Age
Ronnie, 30
Mark, 40
Ace, 50";

TextReader reader = new StringReader(csv);
var table = new DataTable();
using(var it = reader.ReadCsvWithHeader().GetEnumerator())
{

    if (!it.MoveNext()) return;

    foreach (var k in it.Current.Keys)
        table.Columns.Add(k);

    do
    {
        var row = table.NewRow();
        foreach (var k in it.Current.Keys)
            row[k] = it.Current[k];
    
        table.Rows.Add(row);
    
    } while (it.MoveNext());
}