How to Read and Parse CSV Files in C#: Every Approach Ranked

CSV remains the most common tabular data exchange format in enterprise software. From database exports and financial feeds to IoT sensor logs and CRM migrations, the comma separated values file outlives every "CSV is dead" prediction.

The CSV format simplicity is deceptive: any text editor can open a CSV file, any language can read file contents, and any database can export one. But that simplicity hides real CSV parsing complexity that breaks production systems. Most source code tutorials show you a simple split method and call it a day, ignoring the 9 other approaches that handle edge cases, scale to large datasets, or bridge CSV data into a formatted Excel spreadsheet.

using IronXL;// Load a CSV, read it, convert to DataTable — three linesWorkBook workbook = WorkBook.Load("sales_data.csv");WorkSheet sheet = workbook.DefaultWorkSheet;System.Data.DataTable table = sheet.ToDataTable(true);Console.WriteLine($"Loaded {table.Rows.Count} rows, {table.Columns.Count} columns");

Output

C# read CSV file output

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