Getting every line from an array and putting that in textBox.Text

Question

I am writing a simple text editor and currently I am having trouble with the open function. I can successfully read in text from a file, however the trouble I am having is importing it into a text box. Also, I am aware there are questions like this that have already been asked, however I cannot get a working solution from any of them (trust me, I have been trying this for hours). So this is my current open function:

private void openToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        OpenFileDialog openDialog = new OpenFileDialog();

        openDialog.Filter = ".TXT File|*.txt|.BAT File|*.bat|All Files|*.*";
        openDialog.Title = "Open file";

        openDialog.ShowDialog();

        if (openDialog.FileName != "")
        {
            path = openDialog.FileName;

            try
            {
                string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(path);
                //all text from file is now stored in the array "lines"
                //put it into text box
                for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)
                {
                    mainTextEntry.AppendText(lines[i]);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("Error while opening file. Original error:\n\n" + ex);
            }
        }
    }

Allow me to point out a few things from that piece of code:

• My text box is called mainTextEntry.
• My openFileDialog is called openDialog.
• Lines is an array, and contains the read in text.
• You can ignore the catch at the bottom, that is just to prevent crashes.

Ok, so that code above gives the following output:

hellotherehow are you?

As you guessed, the file I am reading in has some line breaks in it:

hello
there
how are you?

Of course that is what I want to be printed in mainTextEntry.Text. How would I go about doing this?

EDIT: full source can be found here: MainWin.cs (if you're paranoid click here)

Answer 1

It's probably overkill but this works for me. But the other options should work. I would say, more than likely is that you're getting that result because somewhere in your code - especially if you created the textbox programmatically - that mainTextEntry.MultiLine is false, when it needs to be true. If I disable multiline in vs I get the same result you're receiving.

//...    
mainTextEntry.Multiline = true; //add this just to be sure
var sb = new StringBuilder();

for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)
{
    sb.AppendLine(lines[i]);
}

mainTextEntry.Text = sb.ToString();

// or
mainTextEntry.Multiline = true; //add this just to be sure
for (int i = 0; i < lines.Length; i++)
{
    mainTextEntry.AppendLine(lines[i] + Environment.NewLine);
}

---

Try appending Environment.NewLine to the end as you display it.

mainTextEntry.AppendText(lines[i] + Environment.NewLine);

Answer 2

Use Environment.NewLine to break the content in presentation.

mainTextEntry.AppendText(String.Join(Environment.NewLine, File.ReadAllLines(path)));

Answer 3

You're missing the new line. You're simply adding to the string. Here's a nifty way of doing it with linq and join

string formattedText = String.Join(Environment.NewLine, File.ReadAllLines(path));

It will take all your lines, format them with your line break, and give you a string all in one go :)

Answer 4

textbox has a property called 'Mutiline',you can try set this property 'true'.