ASP.NET Web Pages - Files
This chapter is about working with text files.
Working with Text Files
In a previous chapter, we looked at web data stored in a database.
Your web site may also have data stored in text files.
Text files used to store data is often called flat files. Common text file formats are .txt, .xml, and .csv (comma-delimited values).
In this chapter you will learn:
- How to read and display data from a text file
Add a Text File Manually
In the example to follow, you will need a text file to work with.
On your web site, if you don't have an App_Data folder, create one. In the App_Data folder, create a new file named Persons.txt.
Add the following content to the file:
Persons.txt
George,Lucas
Steven,Spielberg
Alfred,Hitchcock
Steven,Spielberg
Alfred,Hitchcock
Displaying Data from a Text File
The example below shows how to display data from a text file:
Example
@{
var dataFile = Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Persons.txt");
Array userData = File.ReadAllLines(dataFile);
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h1>Reading Data from a File</h1>
@foreach (string dataLine in userData)
{
foreach (string dataItem in dataLine.Split(','))
{@dataItem <text> </text>}
<br />
}
</body>
</html>
var dataFile = Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/Persons.txt");
Array userData = File.ReadAllLines(dataFile);
}
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
<h1>Reading Data from a File</h1>
@foreach (string dataLine in userData)
{
foreach (string dataItem in dataLine.Split(','))
{@dataItem <text> </text>}
<br />
}
</body>
</html>
Run example »
Example explained
Server.MapPath finds the exact text file path.
File.ReadAllLines opens the text file and reads all lines from the file into an array.
For each dataItem in each dataline of the array the data is displayed.
