Read Text File and Bind With Gridview Control

• Download demo project - 3.1 Kb

Introduction

An article on read text file line by line and split with some delimiter and
bind with Gridview control.

Using the code

First we need to create DataTable and define its columns.

private DataTable CreateTable()
    { 
          try
        {
            DataTable table = new DataTable();
            // Declare DataColumn and DataRow variables.
            DataColumn column;
            // Create new DataColumn, set DataType, ColumnName
            // and add to DataTable.    
            column = new DataColumn();
            column.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");
            column.ColumnName = "Type";
            table.Columns.Add(column);
            // Create second column.
            column = new DataColumn();
            column.DataType = Type.GetType("System.String");
            column.ColumnName = "Time";
            table.Columns.Add(column);
            column = new DataColumn();
            column.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");
            column.ColumnName = "Source";
            table.Columns.Add(column);
            column = new DataColumn();
            column.DataType = System.Type.GetType("System.String");
            column.ColumnName = "Description";
            table.Columns.Add(column);
            return table;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new Exception(ex.Message);
        }
    }

Next Read Text file line by line and each line split with "[" delimiter. Then
populate DataTable with split data.Paste following code on page load event.

if (!IsPostBack)
{
    string OpenPath,contents;
    int tabSize = 4;
    string[] arInfo;
    string line;
    //Create new DataTable.
    DataTable table = CreateTable();
    DataRow row;
    try
    {
            OpenPath = Server.MapPath(".") + @"\My File.log";
            string FILENAME = OpenPath;
            //Get a StreamReader class that can be used to read the file
            StreamReader objStreamReader;
            objStreamReader = File.OpenText(FILENAME);
            while ((line = objStreamReader.ReadLine()) != null)
            {
                contents = line.Replace(("").PadRight(tabSize, ' '), "\t");
                // define which character is seperating fields
                char[] textdelimiter = { ']' };
                arInfo = contents.Split(textdelimiter);
                for (int i = 0; i <= arInfo.Length; i++)
                {
                    row = table.NewRow();
                    if (i < arInfo.Length)
                        row["Type"] = arInfo[i].ToString().Replace("[", " ");
                    if (i + 1 < arInfo.Length)
                        row["Source"] = arInfo[i + 1].ToString().Replace("[", " ");
                    if (i + 2 < arInfo.Length)
                        row["Time"] = arInfo[i + 2].ToString().Substring(1);
                    if (i + 3 < arInfo.Length)
                    {
                        row["Description"] = arInfo[i + 3].ToString().Replace("[", " ");
                        table.Rows.Add(row);
                    }
                    i = i + 2;
                }
            }
            objStreamReader.Close();
        // Set to DataGrid.DataSource property to the table.
            GridView1.DataSource = table;
            GridView1.DataBind();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        lblError.Text = ex.Message;
    }
}