Strange line break character appearing in C# generated CSV

Question

I use a OleDb data reader to read a number of records, and then write them to a CSV. I then read from this CSV using File.ReadAllLines, then split on commas to get my data. The problem is some parts of the CSV include a character I can't display (shows up as a square), which appears to act as a line break - this line break corrupts the CSV, so I need to get rid of it.

I've tried replacing Environment.NewLine with something else (a blank space) when writing the CSV, and ditto with /r and /n but to no avail - the character isn't replaced. What other ways are there to remove these?

Instead of parsing the CSV in your code, it really is best to leverage a parser library that has already been developed to handle discrepancies in encodings and edge cases with separators. You'll find this question useful: [Are there any CSV readers/writer libraries in C#?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1941392/are-there-any-csv-readers-writer-libraries-in-c) — Roy Goode, Feb 11 '12 at 14:10
Post the details of that char, and the relevant code for input/output. — Henk Holterman, Feb 11 '12 at 15:27

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 11 '12 at 14:06

5

I then read from this CSV using File.ReadAllLines, then split on commas to get my data.

Stop rolling your own CSV parser.

answered Feb 11 '12 at 14:06

Darin Dimitrov

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 11 '12 at 14:09

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Dont write CSV file's this way... as it won't work in every scenario.

Use OLD DB to do it for you.

http://devlicio.us/blogs/sergio_pereira/archive/2008/09/17/tip-export-to-csv-using-ado-net.aspx

Hope that helps.

answered Feb 11 '12 at 14:09

Sebastian Siek

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Strange line break character appearing in C# generated CSV

2 Answers2