How to efficiently write to file from SQL datareader in c#?

Question

I have a remote sql connection in C# that needs to execute a query and save its results to the users's local hard disk. There is a fairly large amount of data this thing can return, so need to think of an efficient way of storing it. I've read before that first putting the whole result into memory and then writing it is not a good idea, so if someone could help, would be great!

I am currently storing the sql result data into a DataTable, although I am thinking it could be better doing something in while(myReader.Read(){...} Below is the code that gets the results:

          DataTable t = new DataTable();
            string myQuery = QueryLoader.ReadQueryFromFileWithBdateEdate(@"Resources\qrs\qryssysblo.q", newdate, newdate);
            using (SqlDataAdapter a = new SqlDataAdapter(myQuery, sqlconn.myConnection))
            {
                a.Fill(t);
            }

            var result = string.Empty;
    for(int i = 0; i < t.Rows.Count; i++)
    {
        for (int j = 0; j < t.Columns.Count; j++)
        {
            result += t.Rows[i][j] + ",";
        }


        result += "\r\n";
    }

So now I have this huge result string. And I have the datatable. There has to be a much better way of doing it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Rob Sedgwick answer is more like it, but can be improved and simplified. This is how I did it:

string separator = ";";
string fieldDelimiter = "";
bool useHeaders = true;

string connectionString = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";

using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
{
     using (SqlCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand())
     {
          conn.Open();
          string query = @"SELECT whatever";

          cmd.CommandText = query;

          using (SqlDataReader reader = cmd.ExecuteReader())
          {
                if (!reader.Read())
                {
                     return;
                }

                List<string> columnNames = GetColumnNames(reader);

                // Write headers if required
                if (useHeaders)
                {
                     first = true;
                     foreach (string columnName in columnNames)
                     {
                          response.Write(first ? string.Empty : separator);
                          line = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}", fieldDelimiter, columnName, fieldDelimiter);
                          response.Write(line);
                          first = false;
                     }

                     response.Write("\n");
                }

                // Write all records
                do
                {
                     first = true;
                     foreach (string columnName in columnNames)
                     {
                          response.Write(first ? string.Empty : separator);
                          string value = reader[columnName] == null ? string.Empty : reader[columnName].ToString();
                          line = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}", fieldDelimiter, value, fieldDelimiter);
                          response.Write(line);
                          first = false;
                     }

                     response.Write("\n");
                }
                while (reader.Read());
          }
     }
}

And you need to have a function GetColumnNames:

List<string> GetColumnNames(IDataReader reader)
{
    List<string> columnNames = new List<string>();
    for (int i = 0; i < reader.FieldCount; i++)
    {
         columnNames.Add(reader.GetName(i));
    }

    return columnNames;
}

Answer 2

I came up with this, it's a better CSV writer than the other answers:

public static class DataReaderExtension
{
    public static void ToCsv(this IDataReader dataReader, string fileName, bool includeHeaderAsFirstRow)
    {

        const string Separator = ",";

        StreamWriter streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fileName);

        StringBuilder sb = null;

        if (includeHeaderAsFirstRow)
        {
            sb = new StringBuilder();
            for (int index = 0; index < dataReader.FieldCount; index++)
            {
                if (dataReader.GetName(index) != null)
                    sb.Append(dataReader.GetName(index));

                if (index < dataReader.FieldCount - 1)
                    sb.Append(Separator);
            }
            streamWriter.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
        }

        while (dataReader.Read())
        {
            sb = new StringBuilder();
            for (int index = 0; index < dataReader.FieldCount; index++)
            {
                if (!dataReader.IsDBNull(index))
                {
                    string value = dataReader.GetValue(index).ToString();
                    if (dataReader.GetFieldType(index) == typeof(String))
                    {
                        if (value.IndexOf("\"") >= 0)
                            value = value.Replace("\"", "\"\"");

                        if (value.IndexOf(Separator) >= 0)
                            value = "\"" + value + "\"";
                    }
                    sb.Append(value);
                }

                if (index < dataReader.FieldCount - 1)
                    sb.Append(Separator);
            }

            if (!dataReader.IsDBNull(dataReader.FieldCount - 1))
                sb.Append(dataReader.GetValue(dataReader.FieldCount - 1).ToString().Replace(Separator, " "));

            streamWriter.WriteLine(sb.ToString());
        }
        dataReader.Close();
        streamWriter.Close();
    }
}

usage: mydataReader.ToCsv("myfile.csv", true)