CSV files and customisable program for multiple formats

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I've written a program that seems to be growing in use, but currently the way it's setup I have to create a new sub routine for each different type of CSV file I may read.

Our template CSV will never change.

What I'm trying to find out is can you have a text file that defines column information, rather than having to create a new sub routine with the different format.

Basically it's a CSV reader, that reads through a file and places the columns of information into a format we require. Here is a test sample

VB

currentrow = csvreader.ReadFields()
                        account(0) = (currentrow(0))   'Account number
                        account(1) = (currentrow(29))  'Card Number
                        account(2) = (currentrow(4))   'Firstname
                        account(3) = (currentrow(6))   'Last Name
                        account(4) = (currentrow(2))   'Title
                        account(6) = (currentrow(15))   'Gender
                        account(7) = (currentrow(22))  'Expirydate
                        account(9) = (currentrow(14))  'Birthdate
                        account(12) = (currentrow(11)) 'Postcode
                        account(15) = (currentrow(16)) 'phone number
                        account(20) = (currentrow(20)) 'Email
                        account(26) = (currentrow(7))  'street
                        account(27) = (currentrow(9))  'suburb
                        account(29) = (currentrow(10))  'state
                        account(40) = (currentrow(25))  'accountgroup

the currentrow is what's being read. Can the row numbers be replaced with a variable which is read from a text file, and could someone point me in the right direction on how to do this :)

Iain Stewart

Posted 17-Aug-15 17:50pm

Mendaharin

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Ralf Meier 18-Aug-15 0:16am

I'm not sure if I understood right what you meant. Perhaps you try once more to explain what you are trying to achieve.
Do you want to store/get the Information too in the file to where the readed entries should assigned ?

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Wendelius · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-17T18:11:00

If I understand the question correctly, why not store the mapping information in a configuration file and read it from there.

Basically you would have two pieces of information for each element:
- target column number for an element
- source column number for an element

For example first name would have 2 as target and 4 as source

To use a configuration file you can use ConfigurationManager.AppSettings [^].

The example line could look something like

VB

account(CInt(appSettings("FirstName_Target"))) = (currentrow(CInt(appSettings("FirstName_Source"))))

taken that the appSetting is defined properly as in the example in MSDN.