Print an array/list to excel in c#

Question

I am able to save a single value into excel but I need help to save a full list/array into an excel sheet.

Code I have so far:

var MovieNames = session.Query<Movie>()
                          .ToArray();

List<string> MovieList = new List<string>();

foreach (var movie in MovieNames)
 {                   
  MovieList.Add(movie.MovieName);               
 }

//If I want to print a single value or a string, 
//I can use the following to print/save to excel
// How can I do this if I want to print that entire
//list thats generated in "MovieList" 

return File(new System.Text.UTF8Encoding().GetBytes(MovieList), "text/csv", "demo.csv");

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-10 22:35:33Z

4

You could use FileHelpers to serialize some strongly typed object into CSV. Just promise me to never roll your own CSV parser.

answered Jan 10, 2012 at 22:35

Darin Dimitrov

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3 Comments

Tim Schmelter Over a year ago

+1 for very funny stuff linked("That ringing in your ears is Jamie Zawinski saying "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll use regular expressions.' Now they have two problems.")

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@TimSchmelter, yeah, this is so damn true.

ChrisWue Over a year ago

@DarinDimitrov To be honest I have never seen anyone try to parse csv with regular expressions.

ChrisWue · Accepted Answer · 2012-01-11 18:55:19Z

2

If you mean you want to create a .csv file with all movie names in one column so you can open it in Excel then simply loop over it:

byte[] content;

using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
{
    using (var writer = new StreamWriter(ms))
    {
        foreach (var movieName in MovieList)
            writer.WriteLine(movieName);
    }

    content = ms.ToArray();
}

return File(content, "text/csv", "demo.csv");

Edit

You can add more columns and get fancier with your output but then you run into the problem that you have check for special characters which need escaping (like , and "). If you want to do more than just a simple output then I suggest you follow @Darins suggestion and use the FileHelpers utilities. If you can't or don't want to use them then this article has an implementation of a csv writer.

edited Jan 11, 2012 at 18:55

answered Jan 10, 2012 at 22:32

ChrisWue

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3 Comments

ZVenue Over a year ago

I am getting an exception - "Cannot access a closed stream"

ChrisWue Over a year ago

@ZVenue Sorry, I forgot, StreamWriter closes the underlying stream when being disposed. I corrected the code.

ZVenue Over a year ago

thank you.. that works. Is there a way, I can format the output using this method? Like have more than one values outputted and have labels etc..

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