Another solution to import text files (tab, csv, custom) - FileHelpers
Some of you brought another solution for importing text files to my attention. Thank you for that!
For my current imports my previous solution works just fine. But if you are processing more complex files, then FileHelpers is an excellent library to use. (And very likely more flexible and robust then my solution). It's also an open-source library. You can even download the source code if you like. Some of the main features of this library (source http://filehelpers.sourceforge.net/)
- Easy to use: The FileHelpers Lib is straight forward to learn and use
- Auto Converters: The library has a set of converters for the basic types and can be easy extended to provide custom converters
- Master-Detail: You can read and write records with a master/detail pattern
- Multiple record format support: With the MultirecordEngine you can read files with different record layout, you can also read files with some delimited and some fixed length records
- Event Support: The engines of the library contain some events to make you easy to extend the behavior of the library
- Ms Excel Storage: Are a way to extract / insert records between any source and an excel file
- .NET Compact Framework Support From the version 1.1 you can use the FileHelpers library for you PocketPC and WindowsCE developments.
- .NET 2.0 Generics: the cast less and strong typed version of the engines
- .NET 2.0 Nullable Types The library supports Nullable types in his core
- FileDiffEngine to allow compare files with the same record layout
And many more. Using the library is extremely simple, just check the EasyExample.
So if you want to build something yourself, then the solution described in my previous post will get you started. If you just want to import a variety of data files, then FileHelpers is something you should consider using.