Is there a way to read a CSV file into an ArrayList and then print the values out on the console?

Question

I am simply practicing in C#. I am mostly used to Java but I have been unable to figure out how to read a .CSV file , store it and the print out it's contents into the console. This is what I have so far. What am I doing wrong?

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.IO;
using Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO;
using System.Collections;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            String path = "C:\\Desktop\\csvTestFilePractice\\";
            String file1 = "testFile1.csv";
            ArrayList arryList1 = new ArrayList();
            String[] dataArray1;

            TextFieldParser CSVFile1 = new TextFieldParser(path + file1);
            CSVFile1.SetDelimiters(",");
            dataArray1 = CSVFile1.ReadFields();

            int count = 0;
            while (!CSVFile1.EndOfData)
            {
                dataArray1 = CSVFile1.ReadFields();
                Console.WriteLine(dataArray1);
            }
            Console.Read();
        }
    }
}

Also this is the file I am testing with.

______Excel View

ID  Name    Phone          State
1   Colt    864-367-8399    SC
2   Terry   864-367-8400    GA
3   Joe     864-367-8401    FL
4   Mark    864-367-8402    NC
5   Ashley  864-367-8403    CO

____Notepad View

ID,Name,Phone,State
1,Colt,864-367-8399,SC
2,Terry,864-367-8400,GA
3,Joe,864-367-8401,FL
4,Mark,864-367-8402,NC
5,Ashley,864-367-8403,CO

Thank you for any advice

Answer 1

You shouldn't be using ArrayList anyway as it is a non-generic collection type. You should be considering how to parse the CSV into a List to avoid having to box/unbox your objects.

Answer 2

Based on questions in the comments here is a short version of the program that uses the max length of each column to create the format string. It should work with almost any csv file. I'm sure it could be improved. All columns are left justified.

void Main()
{
    List<string[]> lines = new List<string[]>();

    TextFieldParser CSVFile1 = new TextFieldParser(@"g:\test\test.csv");
    CSVFile1.SetDelimiters(",");

    //Loop through the data and create a list.  Each entry in the list
    //is a string array.  This method may be impractical for very large 
    //files.
    while (!CSVFile1.EndOfData)
    {
        lines.Add(CSVFile1.ReadFields());
    }

    //Create a format string using the length of the longest string in each column
    string formatString = createFormatString(lines);

    //Loop through all the lines and write them to the console.
    foreach (var csvLine in lines)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(formatString, csvLine);
    }
}

//Create a format string based on the number of columns and the maximum
// size of each column
private string createFormatString(List<string[]> lines)
{
    var sb = new StringBuilder();

    //Use the first array to get the number of columns.  They should all be the same
    int numberOfColumns = lines[0].Length;

    //Loop through the number of columns and find the max length and append to the format string
    for (int i = 0; i < numberOfColumns; i++)
    {
        int maxColumnWidth = lines.Select(l => l[i].Length).Max();
        sb.AppendFormat("{{{0}, -{1}}}  ", i, maxColumnWidth);
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}