importing a CSV file into my app...get wierd characters

[ghardy]

i am importing a csv file into my app. this is to let the users pull in info they have in excel.

somehow, they have slanted apostrophes, and not tick marks. so when i open the file stream and do the import, it pulls in those characters as blank boxes (unknown char).

is there a way to compensate for this?

 

[jmcilhinney]

I would suggest that you use a TextFieldParser to read a CSV file:

Using reader As New FileIO.TextFieldParser(filePath)
    reader.Delimiters = New String() {","}

    Do Until reader.EndOfData
        'Read the next line.
        Dim fields As String() = reader.ReadFields()

        'Process the data in whatever way is appropriate.
        MessageBox.Show(String.Join(Environment.NewLine, fields))
    Loop
End Using

Now, to solve your problem, you need to trim the ` character from each field value in each row. For that, define a method that does it for a single value:

Private Function TrimQuotes(ByVal text As String) As String
    Return text.Trim("`"c)
End Function

and now make use of that function in your loop:

Using reader As New FileIO.TextFieldParser(filePath)
    reader.Delimiters = New String() {","}

    Do Until reader.EndOfData
        'Read the next line.
        Dim fields As String() = reader.ReadFields()

[COLOR="red"]        'Remove enclosing quotes from each field value.
        fields = Array.ConvertAll(fields, AddressOf TrimQuotes)[/COLOR]

        'Process the data in whatever way is appropriate.
        MessageBox.Show(String.Join(Environment.NewLine, fields))
    Loop
End Using

The Array.ConvertAll method will take an existing array and return a new array, of the same length, where each element in the new array is the result of calling the specified function and passing the corresponding element of the old array.