How to write multiple line string to text file

Question

3.00/5 (1 vote)

See more:

Hello,

I need to write multiple line string to file.
I have readed succesfuly lines to string from textfile using

C#

string text = sr.ReadToEnd();

Then I've loaded that string to textbox.
What I want now is to modify multiple line text in textbox and save it to file.
How to do it?

Thanks for any kind of help.

Posted 21-Feb-12 8:48am

LosEagle

Add a Solution

5 solutions

Solution 5

An important addition to other answers: don't use explicit

You should never use "\r\n" — using immediate constants is bad; and this is not portable. Right thing is using static property System.Environment.NewLine.

(By the way, you really should avoid all those immediate constants by all means, except something like 0, 1, null. Even the string "" is bad; you should use string.Empty.)

Please see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.newline.aspx[^].

—SA

Posted 26-Feb-12 7:28am

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Andreas Gieriet · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21T10:12:00

Solution 3

How about:

C#

string filepath = ...;
string text = File.ReadAllText(filepath);
...
File.WriteAllText(filepath, text);

Is this what you ask for?
The text already contains the new lines, while reading and writing - no special handling needed, right?

Posted 21-Feb-12 10:12am

Andreas Gieriet

Mohammad A Rahman · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21T10:27:00

In addition to the Solution 3 mention, you could try using one of the following methods,

C#

WriteAllLines(String, IEnumerable(Of String))
WriteAllLines(String, String())
WriteAllLines(String, IEnumerable(Of String), Encoding)
WriteAllLines(String, String(), Encoding)
WriteAllText(String, String)
WriteAllText(String, String, Encoding)

More details File Class[^]

Hope it helps :)

Ed Nutting · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21T09:03:00

Solution 1

Hi there,

You can set the Text Box multi-line property to true so that your text box can display multiple lines/edit multiple line - this would allow the user (you?) to edit the text in the program. If you wish to edit multi-line text dynamically in code use the escape characters \r and \n to create new lines. \r is the reset character and \n is the new line character. Usage example:

C#

static string AppendNewLine(string Input)
{
    return Input + "\r\n";
}

This code will add a new line to the end of the string. You can add multiple of these in a row to achieve multiple new (blank) lines i.e. don't be worried about calling this method twice in a row - the effect remains the same.

Hope this helps,
Ed

Posted 21-Feb-12 9:03am

Ed Nutting

Comments

LosEagle 21-Feb-12 15:10pm

I have TextBox multiline property set to true and I've already readed file to textbox and changed the text. I've made button which will read the textbox and save it to string after the click. But I just don't know how to write that string into a file :(. Didn't found any command for that. Just Writeline() and it will writes all the things in the string to one line I think. But still thanks for all the things you wrote.

Ed Nutting 21-Feb-12 15:13pm

Just use .Write - the text box gives you the new line characters as it is multi-line - basically you don't need to do anything special - it's wonderful what C# does for you :) Just do .Write(MyMultiLineBox.Text) and it'll do what you want :)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Feb-12 13:25pm

You should never use "\r\n" -- using immediate constants is bad; and this is not portable. Right thing is using static read-only property System.Environment.NewLine.
--SA

Ed Nutting 26-Feb-12 13:31pm

I have never found an issue with this across any of Windows, Mac or Linux - why do you think this isn't portable? Even the Microsoft MSDN stuff uses hard-coded new line characters for stuff... Not seeing the advantage of System.Environment.NewLine unless your in some very odd situation...

Edit: Immediate constants can be bad practice I will agree but I do not agree in this specific (and special) case.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 26-Feb-12 14:00pm

Because I know it. And you apparently not. Write a file and compare it with a "natively written" file on Linux and Mac.
"...unless in some very odd situation" is a pure lie. The right thing is always "System.Environment.NewLine".

You behavior in order to protect your wrong advice by all means even in obvious situation is very counter-productive. I'll vote 1, because it means making harm. Sorry, nothing personal.
--SA

Ed Nutting 26-Feb-12 14:15pm

Natively written by what? This is entirely software dependant...(hence why there is no standard answer!) I do not wish to give wrong advice, I simply feel that the advice I have given isn't wrong and that you haven't given a clear example that actually makes this wrong... Given that OP is writing in C# we can restrict things to pure Windows at which point my answer definitely works, and has done for many years for me. I would say that there are limits as to how far some of the .Net stuff should be used - I mean if you want portability at least be consistent with line endings in your own code - given that System.Environment.NewLine will only write whatever the current systems escaped new line character is, if that happens to be set to (some how) \b, then that file is totally useless on other systems where new line is set to \n - portability failed.. System.Environment.NewLine does not solve your problem, it simply makes it Microsoft's....

Joachim1234 · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-21T09:40:00

Solution 2

Maybe you can split the text in the testbox into array of strings (textBox1.Text.Split('\n')) and then use System.IO.File.WriteAllLines to write the array of strings to the file at once.

Posted 21-Feb-12 9:40am

Joachim1234

Updated 21-Feb-12 9:45am

v2