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How to Read Text Files Using C#

27 April 2013

How to Read Text Files Using C# thumbnail

Hello, in this post I will show you how to read text files line-by-line using C#.

Setting Up and Running the Code

Let’s say that you have a text file named “test.txt” with the following contents:

I am a simple
text file with
three lines.

We can read the contents of the file using the following code. Note that I am using a console application.

string file = "file.txt";
using (TextReader reader = new StreamReader(file))
{
    string allLines = reader.ReadToEnd();
    Console.WriteLine(allLines);
}

And it produces the following output in the console:

I am a simple
text file with
three lines.

As you can see, the file contents have been replicated in the console.

How It Works

The first thing to notice is the file name. Notice that I did not put a directory in specifying the file name. In the case of a console application, the default directory would be bin\Debug. Usually, the full path is specified.

Now let’s look at the following line:

using (TextReader reader = new StreamReader(file))
{
    // code body
}

This is the part where the program opens the file.

The TextReader is the abstract base class of StreamReader. One of the StreamReader constructors takes the file path as an argument, and that is the one we are using here.

The using statement creates a scope for the StreamReader. As a rule, when using an IDisposable object, you should declare and instantiate it in a using statement. The using statement calls the Dispose method on the object in the correct way, and it also causes the object itself to go out of scope as soon as Dispose is called.

Finally, it is the following lines that actually read the contents of the file and display it to the console:

string allLines = reader.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(allLines);

Reading a File Line-by-Line

A common use case is to read the file line-by-line and store the contents into a collection, such as a List<string>. To achieve this, the ReadLine method needs to be used:

string file = "file.txt";
List<string> contents = new List<string>();
using (TextReader reader = new StreamReader(file))
{
    string line;
    while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
    {
        contents.Add(line);
    }
}

foreach (string lineContent in contents)
{
    Console.WriteLine(lineContent);
}

The ReadLine method reads only one line at a time. If no further lines are read, it returns null. The preceding snippet will yield the same results as before.

That’s it, see you next time!