Displaying parsed csv files

Question

Ive been working at this for hours and cant seem to figure out how to correctly display the data in a table

using (TextFieldParser csvParser = new TextFieldParser(path)) {
                csvParser.CommentTokens = new string[] { "#" };
                csvParser.SetDelimiters(new string[] { "," });
                csvParser.HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true;

                csvParser.ReadLine();

                int pointX = 30;
                int pointY = 40;

                while (!csvParser.EndOfData) {
                    string[] fields = csvParser.ReadFields();
                    int rowNums = fields.Length;

                    int index = 0;

                    for(index = 0; index < rowNums;index++) {
                        string Name = fields[index];
                        TextBox n = new TextBox();
                        n.Text = Name;
                        n.Location = new Point(pointX, pointY);
                        panel2.Controls.Add(n);
                        panel2.Show();

                        pointY += 20;
                        if(index != 0) {
                            pointX += 100;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

Whats happening so far is im grabbing a csv file stored in the path variable and reading it the output is accessible through fields[] This works fine then I am trying to create textbox to put the data into based on rows however what i currently have comes out look like this

Program Display

I would like to display the column names and rows correctly in order here is an example image of what it looks like in notepad

Notepad Display

In notepad you will see each new line is a row and every , dictates a new entry in the row and i wanna display it this way in my program but in textbox

Also note that not all csv files that this program will be opening are short most will be large files with thousands or rows or more so theres no way that it could be simply putting fields[0] hard coded

Answer 1

You are much better off using a DataGridView to display this type of data in a table format.

From the toolbox add the DataGridView control to your form. You will need to build a DataTable that will bind to your DataGridview.

Below is what you can use(I commented out where you are skipping the header in your CSV file, and am using that line to get the column headers to be used in the datagrid)

       var dt = new DataTable();
        var lineNo = 0;
        using (var csvParser = new TextFieldParser(path))
        {
            csvParser.CommentTokens = new string[] { "#" };
            csvParser.SetDelimiters(new string[] { "," });
            csvParser.HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true;

            //csvParser.ReadLine();

            while (!csvParser.EndOfData)
            {
                var fields = csvParser.ReadFields();

                var rowNums = fields.Length;

                var row = dt.NewRow();

                lineNo += 1;

                int index = 0;

                for (index = 0; index < rowNums; index++)
                {


                    if (lineNo==1)
                    {
                        dt.Columns.Add(fields[index]);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        row[index] = fields[index];
                    }

                }

                if (lineNo == 1) continue;

                dt.Rows.Add(row);
                dt.AcceptChanges();
            }

        }
        dataGridView1.DataSource = dt;

Answer 2

I think the controls are overlapping, so you can not see them. That they are overlapping like chairs is the problem. You are not resetting your coordinates.

Here an improvement:

    using (TextFieldParser csvParser = new TextFieldParser(path)) {
                    csvParser.CommentTokens = new string[] { "#" };
                    csvParser.SetDelimiters(new string[] { "," });
                    csvParser.HasFieldsEnclosedInQuotes = true;

                    csvParser.ReadLine();

int offsetX = 30;
int offsetY = 40;
int counter;

                    while (!csvParser.EndOfData) {
                    int pointerY = ++counter * offsetY; // first counter increments by one, then counter times offsetY occurs
                    int pointerX;

                        string[] fields = csvParser.ReadFields();
                        int rowNums = fields.Length;

                        for(int index = 0; index < rowNums;index++) {
pointerX = (index + 1) * offsetX;

                            string name = fields[index];
                            TextBox n = new TextBox() { Text = name, Location = new Point(pointerX, pointerY) };
                            panel2.Controls.Add(n);
                            panel2.Show(); // should be unnecessary
                        }
                    }
                }