For a resilient, fast, and low effort solution, you can use [CsvHelper][1] which handles a lot of code and edge cases and has pretty good [documentation][2]

### First, install the [CsvHelper package on Nuget][3]

[![CsvHelper nuget download][4]][4]

## a) CSV *with* Headers

If your csv has headers like this:

```none
sport,date,team 1,team 2,score 1,score 2
basketball,2011/01/28,Rockets,Blazers,98,99
baseball,2011/08/22,Yankees,Redsox,4,3
```

You can add attributes to your class to map the field names to your class names like this:

```cs
public class SportStats
{
    [Name("sport")]
    public string Sport { get; set; }
    [Name("date")]
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }
    [Name("team 1")]
    public string TeamOne { get; set; }
    [Name("team 2")]
    public string TeamTwo { get; set; }
    [Name("score 1")]
    public int ScoreOne { get; set; }
    [Name("score 2")]
    public int ScoreTwo { get; set; }
}
```

And then invoke like this:

```
List<SportStats> records;

using (var reader = new StreamReader(@".\stats.csv"))
using (var csv = new CsvReader(reader))
{
    records = csv.GetRecords<SportStats>().ToList();
}
```

### b) CSV *without* Headers

If your csv doesn't have headers like this:

```none
basketball,2011/01/28,Rockets,Blazers,98,99
baseball,2011/08/22,Yankees,Redsox,4,3
```

You can add attributes to your class and map to the CSV ordinally by position like this:

```cs
public class SportStats
{
    [Index(0)]
    public string Sport { get; set; }
    [Index(1)]
    public DateTime Date { get; set; }
    [Index(2)]
    public string TeamOne { get; set; }
    [Index(3)]
    public string TeamTwo { get; set; }
    [Index(4)]
    public int ScoreOne { get; set; }
    [Index(5)]
    public int ScoreTwo { get; set; }
}
```

And then invoke like this:

```
List<SportStats> records;

using (var reader = new StreamReader(@".\stats.csv"))
using (var csv = new CsvReader(reader))
{
    csv.Configuration.HasHeaderRecord = false;
    records = csv.GetRecords<SportStats>().ToList();
}
```

### Further Reading

* [Reading CSV file and storing values into an array][7] (295🡅)
* [Parsing CSV files in C#, with header][9] (245🡅)
* [Import CSV file to strongly typed data structure in .Net][6] (104🡅)
* [Reading a CSV file in .NET?][5] (45🡅)
* [Is there a “proper” way to read CSV files][8] (17🡅)
* ... many more

[1]: https://github.com/JoshClose/CsvHelper
[2]: https://joshclose.github.io/CsvHelper/getting-started/
[3]: https://www.nuget.org/packages/CsvHelper/
[4]: https://i.stack.imgur.com/RaOZM.png
[5]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/1405038/1366033
[6]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/1898/1366033
[7]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/5282999/1366033
[8]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2315182/1366033
[9]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/2081418/1366033

I know how to read and display a line of a .csv file. Now I would like to parse that file, store its contents in arrays, and use those arrays as values for some classes I created.

I'd like to learn how though.

Here is an example:

    basketball,2011/01/28,Rockets,Blazers,98,99
    baseball,2011/08/22,Yankees,Redsox,4,3

As you can see, each field is separated by commas. I've created the Basketball.cs and Baseball classes which is an extension of the Sport.cs class, which has the fields:

    private string sport;
    private string date;
    private string team1;
    private string team2;
    private string score;

I understand that this is simplistic, and that there's better ways of storing this info, i.e. creating classes for each team, making the date a DateType datatype, and more of the same but I'd like to know how to input this information into the classes. 

I'm assuming this has something to do with getters and setters... I've also read of dictionaries and collections, but I'd like to start simple by storing them all in arrays... (If that makes sense... Feel free to correct me).

Here is what I have so far. All it does is read the csv and parrot out its contents on the Console:

    using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Linq;
    using System.Text;
    using System.IO;

    namespace Assign01
    {
        class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                string line;
                FileStream aFile = new FileStream("../../sportsResults.csv", FileMode.Open);
                StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(aFile);
                
                // read data in line by line
                while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(line);
                    line = sr.ReadLine();
                }
                sr.Close();
            }
        }
    }


Help would be much appreciated.

Importing CSV data into C# classes

There is a native way to hide data elements sent to CSV by using `DataElementOutput=NoOutput`

1. Open the properties menu (<kbd>F4</kbd>) for the `TextBox`
2. Set the `DataElementOutput` property to `NoOutput`

   ![screenshot](http://i.imgur.com/QJI7a0x.png)

### Further Explanation

When SSRS has to render a chart, it has a couple of decisions to make.  If you spent a lot of time doing some cool formatting, it will try to preserve that when going to PDF because PDF documents are full of rich formatting.  For example, if you set the margins of the report, a PDF should care, but a CSV has no way to even hold that information (nor should it).

As such, there are [**different rendering engines** used by SSRS][3]:

![Render Engines](http://i.imgur.com/WsUZgSZ.png)

Each of these has their own process.  The data exports, for example, will only pull information from datafields.  For example, a data field is welcome to have several layers of headers, the names of which  may or may not use [**CLS-compliant identifiers**][4], so it's safer to extract that information directly from the textbox name itself.  

The TextBox containing the data can be used to set other data export properties as well.

In this instance, you can remove a particular data field by using the [**DataElementOutput**][5] which: 

> Indicates whether the data point should appear in a data rendering.


### Further Reading

* [SSRS: Conditionally hiding columns based on parameter values - CSV export ignores][1]
* [Summary Data Appears in SSRS 2008R2 CSV Export][2]
* [Hide/Show Items Dependant On Export Format (SSRS)][6]

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/2105220/1366033
[2]: https://stackoverflow.com/q/8122016/1366033
[3]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd239307.aspx
[4]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/27535419/1366033
[5]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.reportingservices.rdlobjectmodel.chartdatapoint.dataelementoutput.aspx
[6]: http://blog.hoegaerden.be/2011/01/18/ssrs-hideshow-items-dependant-on-export-format/

I'm using SSRS 2012 trying to do the following:

Some columns should only be visible on user request, using a combo box. Visibility of the columns dependes on the selected columns on the combo. This seems to work fine!

When I export the output in any format different of .csv these columns remain invisible. But when exporting to .csv invisible coulmns are shown.

I found this:

    =iif(Globals!RenderFormat.Name="CSV", True, False)

This should be placed in the "Hidden" property of the column I'm trying to hide. But it doesn't work and when I write the expression RenderFormat is not an option as auto-complete.

Sorry for my clumsy english and thanks.

SSRS 2012 and CSV export

Quickly note that Matches is an array which may create issues exporting to a csv.  
Try joining the array into a string with a chosen delimiter.  I used "::" in my example.

    $filter | Select Line, @{Expression={$_.Matches -join "::"}; Label="Matches"} | Export-Csv "C:\log.csv"

I have a powershell script to find particular instances and then export them to CSV.  Here's an example of the way the code works

    $items = "Hello Tim", "Hola Bob", "Hello Susan" 
    $filter = $items | Select-String -Pattern "Hello"
    $filter | Select-Object Line, Matches | Export-Csv "C:\log.csv"
    Invoke-Item "C:\log.csv"

When I run the `Select-Object` in PS, it's nicely formatted info like this:

![powershell][1]

However, when I export to CSV, it exports the whole object and writes it as the following string: `System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match[]`

![csv export][2]

How can I get it to export just the first match or a listing of all matches into a single field when writing to CSV?

[1]: http://i.imgur.com/CUyiHvl.png
[2]: http://i.imgur.com/DvChifZ.png