CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#fileflat
Max Marchevsky
Max Marchevsky

Reputation: 9

Fix length record and creating a file

I have to create a fix length record file using C#. I read the records from database and then after some business logic I would like to write some of the fields into a text file. I researched this and some recommend using an XML to define the file, while others format the string and then write that into a file.

Is there a proper way to do this? I would like to keep this object oriented.

Thanks for any hints.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2157

Answers (3)

Matt Smucker
Matt Smucker

Reputation: 5234

In the past when i've done this, I pull the data out of SQL as a Char(Length) so that the padding is handled by SQL. This makes the C# pretty easy to put together. You can do this by casting or converting the data when you select it, or by creating a table that is the exact format of your file and inserting the data in there before pulling it out into C#.

Upvotes: 0

Bo Williams
Bo Williams

Reputation: 63

You can use Jet to parse fixed length records in a text file. This is a decent overview that should be able to get you started:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/deborahk/archive/2009/08/25/reading-fixed-length-files.aspx

Upvotes: 0

Jason Meckley
Jason Meckley

Reputation: 7591

take a look at http://www.filehelpers.com/ to export the data to a fixed file format. you may also want to look at http://hibernatingrhinos.com/open-source/rhino-etl to create a process that runs the export for you. rhino.etl includes operations for FileHelpers.

Upvotes: 1

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