Importing a space delimited file into a DataGridView

Question

I have the following data that I wish to import into a DataGridView:

01-29-15  04:04AM            505758360 examplefilename1.zip
01-28-15  12:28AM            501657000 this_is_another_file.zip
01-29-15  02:27AM           1629952132 random.data.for.example.zip

This data isn't delimited by and particular number of characters or by any characters. I need to import this data into a DataGridView, I have the following code:

public void LoadDataToGrid(string pProfile)
{
    string[] lvTextData = File.ReadAllLines(Global.lvPath + @"\" + pProfile + ".txt");

    DataTable dtTextData = new DataTable();

    dtTextData.Columns.Add("Company Name", typeof(string));
    dtTextData.Columns.Add("Size", typeof(string));
    dtTextData.Columns.Add("File Name", typeof(string));
    dtTextData.Columns.Add("Last Upload", typeof(string));

    for(int i=1; i < lvTextData.Length; i++)
        dtTextData.Rows.Add(lvTextData[i].Split());

    grdData.DataSource = dtTextData;
}

The data comes in fine but only sits in one column, how can I change define the column widths?

your sample data seems to be missing some fields (company name and machine code). Is the input data inconsistent (i.e. sometimes missing fields), or is it always in the format: `last upload / size / file name`? — Rufus L, Jan 29 '15 at 20:33
Sorry, I shouldn't have left them in, they will be populated by other methods. The data is purely "Date/Time", "Bytes", and "Filename". — , Jan 30 '15 at 09:23

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 30 '15 at 10:32

There seem to be a few problems with your code (and the data you provide):

when you split the string

01-29-15  04:04AM            505758360 examplefilename1.zip

It splits it into an array of strings of Length == 16 (cause it splits all the whitespace characters). But you're providing only 4 Columns. So you want to put an array of 16 strings into 4 columns, which clearly can't be done.

A simple thing to do is: Remove redundant whitespaces of your input string Regex.Replace(s, "\\s+, " ");. (you also could Regex-parse the string and split it into groups). Then you can split your string by whitespaces and you'll get an array of strings of Length == 4

For your example (although your input data obviously is not corresponding with the names of your columns):

 for (int i = 1; i < lvTextData.Length; i++)
 {
     // removes redundant whitespaces
     string removedWhitespaces = Regex.Replace(lvTextData[i], "\\s+", " ");
     // splits the string
     string[] splitArray = removedWhitespaces.Split(' ');
     // [0]: 01-29-15
     // [1]: 04:04AM
     // [2]: 505758360
     // [3]: examplefilename1.zip

     // do some kind of length checking here
     if(splitArray.Length == dtTextData.Columns.Count) 
     { 
         dtTextData.Rows.Add(splitArray);
     }
 }

nhaberl · Answer 2 · 2015-01-30T11:50:38.087

You can even look for CSV Reader - if you are using NuGet look here

It handles also trailing / ending white spaces automatically. Keep in mind that you have to specify '\t' or ' ' as delimiting character.

void ReadAndBindCsv()
{
   // open the file "data.csv" which is a CSV file with headers
   using (CsvReader csv = new CsvReader(
                       new StreamReader("data.csv"), true))
   {
        csv.TrimSpaces = true;
        grdData.DataSource = csv;
   }
}

Importing a space delimited file into a DataGridView

2 Answers2