c# reading in a text file into datatable

Question

i need to read files that look like this into a datatable:

A02   BLANK031  
B02   F357442   
C02   F264977   
D02   BLANK037  
E02   F272521   
F02   E121562   
G02   F264972   
H02   F332321   
A03   E208240   
B03   F313854   
C03   E229786   
D03   E229787   
E03   F307584   
F03   F357478   

i have a weird delimitter and some trailing spaces. how would i read this into a datatable such that the first column will contain 'A02','B02'... and the second column will contain 'BLANK031','F357442',etc..

currently i am doing:

DataTable dt = new DataTable();
                using (TextReader tr = File.OpenText(batchesAddresses[index]))
                {
                    string line;
                    while ((line = tr.ReadLine()) != null)
                    {

                    string[] items = Regex.Split(line, ' ');
                    if (dt.Columns.Count == 0)
                    {
                        // Create the data columns for the data table based on the number of items
                        // on the first line of the file
                        for (int i = 0; i < items.Length; i++)
                            dt.Columns.Add(new DataColumn("Column" + i, typeof(string)));
                    }
                        dt.Rows.Add(items);

                    }
                }

but this is not working because i have trailing spaces and multiple spaces between columns

Answer 1

If you use:

static readonly char[] space = { ' ' };
...
string[] items = line.Split(space, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

you should get the 2 values you expect, although something more selective might be desirable, especially if the right-hand-side might contain a space in the middle.

Answer 2

Change your regex to something like: (\\w{3})\\s+(\\w{5,10}) . This means capture 3 word chars (including digits) into group 1, look for one or more whitespace characters, and then capture 5-10 word chars into group 2.

Then do:

Regex r = new Regex("(\w{3})\s+(\w{5,10})");
Match m = r.Match(line);
string col1 = m.Groups[1].Value;
string col2 = m.Groups[2].Value;

Answer 3

The error regarding System.StringSplitOptions seems to be a casting bug in the compiler. Add a line prior to your split statement that defines the desired StringSplitOptions and then use the variable in the split statement.

static readonly char[] space = { ' ' };
static readonly StringSplitOptions options =  StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries;
...
string[] items = line.Split(space, options);

This should work for all overloads.