De-Serializing CSV File

ServiceStack.Text
1

We have a business need to deserialize a csv file row by row, to a defined class, using the row headers in the csv as the mapping. We had a few questions about if we can use FromCSV in ServiceStack.Text to serve our needs:

  1. If a field value cannot be serialized to the correct type (e.g. they submit 42 in a DateTime field) we need to be able to let them know the specific field which caused the error. I couldn’t find any documentation on exception/error handling during the deserialization. Is this possible?
  2. Some of the types in the class are Enums - will the deserializer fail if the value provided doesn’t fall within the enum values?

If FromCSV doesn’t support these things, then is there a way to accomplish them with the ServcieStack.Text libraries or am I better off using something like FileHelpers?

thanks!

2

No ServiceStacks CSV serialiser does not support these exact features. If the data doesn’t match the Type it’s deserializing into the change the property Type to a string so you can then manually copy it into a different Type with stricter properties which will then let you know the exact row and property that throws an Exception when you try to convert it.

3

OK - thanks. Seems like I’d be re-writing the whole conversion at that point. FileHelpers it is :smile:

4

Just to throw in, https://joshclose.github.io/CsvHelper/ is a great csv deserialization library. It works identically to your requirements. I’m not associated with them, just have used it in several projects.

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