fastCSV

Fast CSV reader writer in c#.

Features

• Fully CSV standard compliant
  • Multi-line
  • Quoted columns
  • Keeps spaces between delimiters
• Really fast reading and writing of CSV files (see performance)
• Tiny 8kb DLL compiled to net40 or netstandard20
• Ability to get a typed list of objects from a CSV file
• Ability to filter a CSV file while loading
• Ability to specify a custom delimiter

Usage

{c#}
public class cars
{
    // you can use fields or properties
    public string Year;
    public string Make;
    public string Model;
    public string Description;
    public string Price;
}

// listcars = List<cars>
var listcars = fastCSV.ReadFile<cars>(
    "csvstandard.csv", // filename
    true,              // has header
    ',',               // delimiter
    (o, c) =>          // to object function o : cars object, c : columns array read
    {
        o.Year = c[0];
        o.Make = c[1];
        o.Model = c[2];
        o.Description = c[3];
        o.Price = c[4];
        // add to list
        return true;
    });

fastCSV.WriteFile<LocalWeatherData>(
    "filename2.csv",   // filename
    new string[] { "WBAN", "Date", "SkyCondition" }, // headers
    '|',               // delimiter
    list,              // list of LocalWeatherData to save
    (o, c) =>          // from object function 
  {
      c.Add(o.WBAN);
      c.Add(o.Date.ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
      c.Add(o.SkyCondition);
  });

Helper functions for performance

fastCSV has the following helper functions:

• int ToInt(string s) creates an int from a string
• int ToInt(string s, int index, int count) creates an int from a substring
• DateTime ToDateTimeISO(string value, bool UseUTCDateTime) creates an ISO standard DateTime i.e. yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ss ( optional part<tt>.nnnZ)

{c#}
public class LocalWeatherData
{
    public string WBAN;
    public DateTime Date;
    public string SkyCondition;
}

var list = fastCSV.ReadFile<LocalWeatherData>("201503hourly.txt", true, ',', (o, c) =>
    {
        bool add = true;
        o.WBAN = c[0];
        // c[1] data is in "20150301" format
        o.Date = new DateTime(fastCSV.ToInt(c[1], 0, 4), 
                              fastCSV.ToInt(c[1], 4, 2), 
                              fastCSV.ToInt(c[1], 6, 2));
        o.SkyCondition = c[4];
        //if (o.Date.Day % 2 == 0)
        //    add = false;
        return add;
    });

Performance v1

Loading the https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/orders/qclcd/QCLCD201503.zip file which has 4,496,263 rows on my machine as a relative comparison to other libraries:

• fastcsv : 11.20s 639Mb used
• nreco.csv : 6.62s 800Mb used
• **.net string.Split()** : 11.50s 638Mb used
• tinycsvparser : 34s 992Mb used

v2

Rewritten the internals:

• using a char buffer to read from the file instead of File.ReadLines()
• using Span like MGSpan data structure for .net4
• columns are only converted to string when used in the delegate
• fast create object IL instead of new T()

Performance

• fastcsv net4: 6.27s 753Mb used
• fastcsv core : 6.51s 669Mb used