Write to txt in a 'form-like' manner

Question

I'm implementing a Windows application to make planning projects easier at my workplace and I was wondering if there's any clever way of making a txt-file nicely structured.

The application is really very simple, pretty much what it does is give the user a question which is answered in a textbox bellow. The question AND the answer are then both sent to a file but it looks very tacky.

Example:

Question?Answer!Question?Answer!

I would like it to be more like this:

Question?
Answer!

I was also curious about other types files, is it possible to use Pdf or MS word the same way as txt?

How about using XML? Linq to XML makes it really easy. – dario_ramos Aug 09 '12 at 12:35 — dario_ramos, Aug 09 '12 at 12:35

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

You can use File.AppendAllLines() and pass in the different strings as an array. They will appear as separate lines in the text file. You'll also need to add a using System.IO at the top of your file.

For example:

// Ensure file exists before we write
if (!File.Exists("<YOUR_FILE_PATH>.txt"))
{
    using (File.CreateText("<YOUR_FILE_PATH>.txt")) {}
}

File.AppendAllLines("<YOUR_FILE_PATH>.txt", new string[] {
    "Question1",
    "Answer1",
    "Question2",
    "Answer2",
    "Question3",
    "Answer3"
});

I hope this is what you're after - the question is a little vague.

As for Word and PDF files, this is more complex. Here's a link to a StackOverflow question about Word:

How can a Word document be created in C#?

and one about PDF:

Creating pdf files at runtime in c#

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '12 at 12:40

For a simple text file you could use

StringBuilder fileData = new StringBuilder();
fileData.AppendLine("Question: blah! blah! blah! blah!");
fileData.AppendLine("Answer: blah! blah! blah! blah!");

FileStream fs = new FileStream("yourFile.txt", FileMode.Create);
StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs);
sw.Write(fileData.ToString());
sw.Flush();
fs.Flush();
fs.Close();

But of course it won't give you that bold question flavor, for that you would have to use something else,

like MS Word interop, to learn that visit here.

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 09 '12 at 13:00

I wanted to mention the String.Format function.

suppose, you have your strings question and answer, you could do some

using (var stream = new StreamWriter('myfile.txt', true)) // append=true
  stream.Write(String.Format("\n{0}\n{1}\n\n{2}\n", 
                             question, 
                             new String('=',question.Length), 
                             answer);

to get a text file like

Question 1
==========
Answer

Second Question
===============
Answer

You might also want to use String.Trim() on question to get rid of leading and trailing whitespace (question = question.Trim()), so the "underline" effect looks nicely.

Write to txt in a 'form-like' manner

3 Answers3