What's a way to read a specific line from a text file?

Question

I want to read a line from a text file, except that I want to specify the line to read.

I've tried:

using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(@"C:\Program Files\TTVB\Users.txt"))
            {
                text = reader.ReadLine(acctMade);
            }

acctMade is an int.

This returns:

No overload for method 'ReadLine' takes 1 arguments

Use `File.ReadAllLines` (which will give you an array), and then access the line via the correct array index. `string[] text = File.ReadAllLines(); string desiredLine = text[acctMade];` — Tim, Jul 27 '13 at 01:06
@Minicl55 - I edited my comment to `File.ReadAllLines` - to do this you'll need to use `File` instead of `StreamReader`. See [File.ReadAllLines](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s2tte0y1.aspx) — Tim, Jul 27 '13 at 01:10
If you do end up with a large file, you could seek to the end of the file then read backwards until you find a newline(depending on character set) then read that to the end. — user1132959, Jul 27 '13 at 01:14

Prix · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-27T01:19:38.280

2

If the file is not that big, you can use File.ReadAllLines to put the file into a array of strings:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(@"C:\Program Files\TTVB\Users.txt");
Console.WriteLine(lines[acctMade]);

You need to use using System.IO; at the top of your code or use System.IO.File.ReadAllLines in order for it to be usable.

edited Jul 27 '13 at 01:19

answered Jul 27 '13 at 01:10

Prix

19,417
15
73
132

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

A variety of ways: Read certain line in a text file (CodeProject

A simple way using StreamReader:

string GetLine(string fileName, int line)
{
   using (var sr = new StreamReader(fileName)) {
       for (int i = 1; i < line; i++)
          sr.ReadLine();
       return sr.ReadLine();
   }
}

Snippet from: How do I read a specified line in a text file?

For a more efficient but complex way:

Efficient way to read a specific line number of a file. (BONUS: Python Manual Misprint)

What's a way to read a specific line from a text file?

2 Answers2