BethanyW 8/13/2011 12:24:05 PM

TextFieldParser

A large part of my job is taking data in disparate forms and integrating it into Dynamics. The data is frequently in text file - some comma delimited, some fixed length, some 'variable fixed length'. By that I mean that the data has different formats inside the file, the format is usually determined by the first few characters in the line. For instance, we might have a file like this:

OH20110813002351SMITH 0001251
OD00001BIG HAMMER  11.99
OH20110813002351JONES 0001252
OD00001BIG WRENCH  13.99

The lines that start with 'OH' are Order Header lines, the line format would be:

 Character Field Type 
 1-2  Line Type String
 3-10  Date Date
11-16  Customer Number String
17-25 Customer Name String
26-35 Order Number String

 Our OL (Order Line) data is similar:

Character  Field Type
1-2 Line Type String
 2-7 Quantity Int16
 8-20 Item Number String
 21-28 Price Double

 So, how do we read that into VB and get it sent to Dynamics? In the past I've build complicated parsing routines, and used LINQ. I'm not fond of LINQ, nor am I fond of complicated routines. Enter in TextFieldParser

The TextFieldParser class is part of the Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO and is designed to handle all three of our file types, but the variable type is by far the harded to deal with. The code below explains how to use this object in your code

Version: Unknown or N/A
Section: .NET Development


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