Writing in an CSV file using C#

Question

I'm looking for a way to write strings in a different cell of a CSV file.

I'm using this program,

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        string filePath = @"E:\test.csv";  

        string a = "a";
        string b = "c";
        string c = "d";
        string d = "d";

        File.WriteAllText(filePath, a);
        // how can add the other strings in the next cells ?
    }

What I need here is to write "a" in the first cell, "b" in the second cell, c ..

Answer 1

CSV is a pretty simple file format, especially if you don't need any cells to contain nested commas. CSV means comma-separated values, so you just need a way to construct a string with commas between each cell. This will work, although it is only for a single line:

File.WriteAllText(filePath, String.Join(",", a, b, c, d));

Answer 2

CSV is absolutely NOT a SIMPLE file format, it is a sufficiently elaborate format that is able to encompass almost any kind of data regardless of shape or size.

The CSV format is capable of dealing with optional parameters vs non optional, data with or without line breaks, and should be able to work with or without field escaping characters in any field without line breaks and is required to have field escaping characters in fields with line breaks.

You should not ever work with CSV files by hand, you should utilize FileHelpers to work with CSV files.

At this point I no longer use FileHelpers as my goto CSV parsing library I use CsvHelper from Josh Close.