How do you read a CSV file and display the results in a grid in Visual Basic 2010?

Question

How do you read a CSV file and display the results in a grid in Visual Basic 2010? This sounds so simple but I still can\'t find the answer to it after googling for a while.

Answer 1

Use the TextFieldParser class built into the .Net framework.

Here's some code copied from an MSDN forum post by Paul Clement. It converts the CSV into a new in-memory DataTable and then binds the DataGridView to the DataTable

    Dim TextFileReader As New Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.TextFieldParser("C:\Documents and Settings\...\My Documents\My Database\Text\SemiColonDelimited.txt")

    TextFileReader.TextFieldType = FileIO.FieldType.Delimited
    TextFileReader.SetDelimiters(";")

    Dim TextFileTable As DataTable = Nothing

    Dim Column As DataColumn
    Dim Row As DataRow
    Dim UpperBound As Int32
    Dim ColumnCount As Int32
    Dim CurrentRow As String()

    While Not TextFileReader.EndOfData
        Try
            CurrentRow = TextFileReader.ReadFields()
            If Not CurrentRow Is Nothing Then
                ''# Check if DataTable has been created
                If TextFileTable Is Nothing Then
                    TextFileTable = New DataTable("TextFileTable")
                    ''# Get number of columns
                    UpperBound = CurrentRow.GetUpperBound(0)
                    ''# Create new DataTable
                    For ColumnCount = 0 To UpperBound
                        Column = New DataColumn()
                        Column.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String")
                        Column.ColumnName = "Column" & ColumnCount
                        Column.Caption = "Column" & ColumnCount
                        Column.ReadOnly = True
                        Column.Unique = False
                        TextFileTable.Columns.Add(Column)
                    Next
                End If
                Row = TextFileTable.NewRow
                For ColumnCount = 0 To UpperBound
                    Row("Column" & ColumnCount) = CurrentRow(ColumnCount).ToString
                Next
                TextFileTable.Rows.Add(Row)
            End If
        Catch ex As _
        Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.MalformedLineException
            MsgBox("Line " & ex.Message & _
            "is not valid and will be skipped.")
        End Try
    End While
    TextFileReader.Dispose()
    frmMain.DataGrid1.DataSource = TextFileTable