CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#system.io.file
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Reputation: 619

How to access a text file in c# that is being used by another process

I have text file which is being been used by modscan to write data into the file. At a particular time I have to read the data and save in database. In offline mode ie; without modscan using it I can read the data and very well save in database. however as it online with modscan it gives exception

Cannot access file as it been used by other process.

My code:

using System.IO;
string path = dt.Rows[i][11].ToString();
string[] lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines(@path);

path has "E:\Metertxt\02.txt"

So what changes I need to make in order to read it without interfering with modscan. I googled and I found this which might work, however I am not sure how to use it

FileShare.ReadWrite

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2623

Answers (2)

Micke
Micke

Reputation: 2309

You can use a FileStream to open a file that is already open in another application. Then you'll need a StreamReader if you want to read it line by line. This works, assuming a file encoding of UTF8:

using (var stream = new FileStream(@"c:\tmp\locked.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding.UTF8))
    {
        string line;

        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            // Do something with line, e.g. add to a list or whatever.
            Console.WriteLine(line);
        }
    }
}

Alternative in case you really need a string[]:

var lines = new List<string>();

using (var stream = new FileStream(@"c:\tmp\locked.txt", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite))
{
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding.UTF8))
    {
        string line;
        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            lines.Add(line);
        }
    }
}

// Now you have a List<string>, which can be converted to a string[] if you really need one.
var stringArray = lines.ToArray();

Upvotes: 3

Acha Bill
Acha Bill

Reputation: 1255

FileStream fstream = new FileStream("@path", FileMode.Open,FileAccess.Read, FileShare.ReadWrite);
StreamReader sreader = new StreamReader(fstream);
List<string> lines = new List<string>();
string line;
while((line = sreader.ReadeLine()) != null)
    lines.Add(line);
//do something with the lines
//if you need all lines at once,
string allLines = sreader.ReadToEnd();

Upvotes: 0

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