How to create a csv file with C#

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This is a simple tutorial on creating csv files using C# that you will be able to edit and expand on to fit your own needs.

First you’ll need to create a new Visual Studio C# console application, to do so follow these steps:

To create and run a console application

  1. Start Visual Studio.

  2. On the menu bar, choose File, New, Project.
  3. Expand Installed, expand Templates, expand Visual C#, and then choose Console Application.
  4. In the Name box, specify a name for your project, and then choose the OK button.
  5. If Program.cs isn’t open in the Code Editor, open the shortcut menu for Program.cs in Solution Explorer, and then choose View Code.

  6. Replace the contents of Program.cs with the following code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.IO;

namespace CreateCsv
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            // Set the path and filename variable "path", filename being MyTest.csv in this example.
            // Change SomeGuy for your username.
            string path = @"C:\Users\SomeGuy\Desktop\MyTest.csv";

            // Set the variable "delimiter" to ", ".
            string delimiter = ", ";

            // This text is added only once to the file.
            if (!File.Exists(path))
            {
                // Create a file to write to.
                string createText = "Column 1 Name" + delimiter + "Column 2 Name" + delimiter + "Column 3 Name" + delimiter + Environment.NewLine;
                File.WriteAllText(path, createText);
            }

            // This text is always added, making the file longer over time
            // if it is not deleted.
            string appendText = "This is text for Column 1" + delimiter + "This is text for Column 2" + delimiter + "This is text for Column 3" + delimiter + Environment.NewLine;
            File.AppendAllText(path, appendText);

            // Open the file to read from.
            string readText = File.ReadAllText(path);
            Console.WriteLine(readText);
        }
    }
}

 

Now when you start the program it should create a csv file called MyTest.csv in the location you specified. The contents of the file should be 3 named columns with text in the first 3 rows.

If you would like to know how to create a console application in Visual Studio that reads a csv file into a list variable see this tutorial link. The tutorial will also show you how to clean strings with regex and will introduce you to functionality that will allow you to search a list for matching strings.

If you would like to know how to create a console application in Visual Studio that won’t open a command window when it runs see this tutorial link.

5 thoughts on “How to create a csv file with C#”

  1. Pingback: How to pass arguments from command line to a console application written in C# | Tidbytes
  2. Pingback: How to create a console application in C# that will solve crosswords | Tidbytez

    1. Hi Alex, yes it will. The example code appends the data if the code is run again and the file already exists. As it says in the code comments “This text is always added, making the file longer over time”.
      To avoid writing the same data to the file the last row entry to the csv file would need to be read by the code and then compared to what the code intended to write. If the data is the same then skip writing the data, if the data is not the same then write the new data to the file.
      This tutorial has examples of how to read data from a csv and comparing text variables.

      How to create a C# console application that will solve crosswords


      You might also consider allowing the data to be written regardless and simply add a date/timestamp column to track when it was written. That sort of metadata can be valuable in unexpected ways.
      Feel free to share the code you come up with in the comments.
      Good luck.

      Like

      Reply
  4. Pingback: Writing data into CSV file in C# | MVR

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