StreamReader and StreamWriter with Excel

Question

I need some guidance here.

I am reading a excel file using a StreamReader , then get the file to a string using the StreamReader.ReadToEnd(); method. Then I write the string to a different location on the file system using a StreamWriter.Write() method.

Then I re-read file from the location I wrote it earlier. However it seems I am reading some garbage values and I can't open the excel file from the new location...

Am I doing something wrong here to file to get corrupted ? Am I missing something to do with encoding here ?

Answer 1

Excel files are binary. StreamReader is a kind of TextReader , and StreamWriter is a kind of TextWriter .

Binary and Text - not the same thing.

Answer 2

Depending on what Excel format you are using, you will find it very painful to read/write directly. Libraries such as NPOI make this much easier.

The version that reads/writes xlsx files is still in beta, but stable in my use. If you need xlsx format files, download from their site, instead of via NuGet. NPOI on GitHub