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

Very basic answer: if you don't have a complex csv that can use a simple split function this will work well for importing (note this imports as strings, i do datatype conversions later if i need to)

 private DataTable csvToDataTable(string fileName, char splitCharacter)
    {                
        StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fileName);
        string myStringRow = sr.ReadLine();
        var rows = myStringRow.Split(splitCharacter);
        DataTable CsvData = new DataTable();
        foreach (string column in rows)
        {
            //creates the columns of new datatable based on first row of csv
            CsvData.Columns.Add(column);
        }
        myStringRow = sr.ReadLine();
        while (myStringRow != null)
        {
            //runs until string reader returns null and adds rows to dt 
            rows = myStringRow.Split(splitCharacter);
            CsvData.Rows.Add(rows);
            myStringRow = sr.ReadLine();
        }
        sr.Close();
        sr.Dispose();
        return CsvData;
    }

My method if I am importing a table with a string[] separater and handles the issue where the current line i am reading may have went to the next line in the csv or text file <- IN which case i want to loop until I get to the total number of lines in the first row (columns)

public static DataTable ImportCSV(string fullPath, string[] sepString)
    {
        DataTable dt = new DataTable();
        using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(fullPath))
        {
           //stream uses using statement because it implements iDisposable
            string firstLine = sr.ReadLine();
            var headers = firstLine.Split(sepString, StringSplitOptions.None);
            foreach (var header in headers)
            {
               //create column headers
                dt.Columns.Add(header);
            }
            int columnInterval = headers.Count();
            string newLine = sr.ReadLine();
            while (newLine != null)
            {
                //loop adds each row to the datatable
                var fields = newLine.Split(sepString, StringSplitOptions.None); // csv delimiter    
                var currentLength = fields.Count();
                if (currentLength < columnInterval)
                {
                    while (currentLength < columnInterval)
                    {
                       //if the count of items in the row is less than the column row go to next line until count matches column number total
                        newLine += sr.ReadLine();
                        currentLength = newLine.Split(sepString, StringSplitOptions.None).Count();
                    }
                    fields = newLine.Split(sepString, StringSplitOptions.None);
                }
                if (currentLength > columnInterval)
                {  
                    //ideally never executes - but if csv row has too many separators, line is skipped
                    newLine = sr.ReadLine();
                    continue;
                }
                dt.Rows.Add(fields);
                newLine = sr.ReadLine();
            }
            sr.Close();
        }

        return dt;
    }