[RESOLVED] StreamReader readline() split only at newlines that are not encapsulated in quotes

I have the following function

Code:

---

        /// <summary>
        /// Pulls info from CSV file and stores each entry as list of string arrays
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="path"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static List<string[]> parseCSV(string path)
        {
            //
            List<string[]> parsedData = new List<string[]>();

            try
            {
                using (StreamReader readFile = new StreamReader(path))
                {
                    string line;
                    string[] row;
                    string pattern = ",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))";  //Should be commas that are not encapsulated in quotation marks
                    Regex r = new Regex(pattern);
                    while ((line = readFile.ReadLine()) != null)
                    {
                        row = r.Split(line);
                        parsedData.Add(row);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(e.Message);
                CommitSuicide();
            }

            return parsedData;
        }

---

which worked well in the past, but now the company who is sending us the CSV has added a new field which sometimes has newlines (\r\n). This function will no longer support us because (line = readFile.ReadLine()) splits at each newline.

What is the best way to modify the existing function to only split at newlines that aren't enclosed in double quotes? I suppose I could create a StreamReader extension and call it ReadEntry and basically recreate what ReadLine already does... but that sounds rather tedious and out of my skill level, to be honest.

First thing that pops into my head is you will have to make a custom parser that reads the file character by character with a flag denoting if you are in a "tag" or not. If the next two chars are \r\n and you flag is true, put the char into the collection, else start a new record.

idea #2, tell them to fix their stuff so you don't have to change yours :)

So what I ended up doing is creating an extension on StreamReader to read it line-by-line until the number of double quotes in it is even.

Here is my extensions class:

Code:

---

    public static class Extensions
    {
        public static string ReadEntry(this StreamReader sr)
        {
            string strReturn = "";
            //get first bit
            strReturn += sr.ReadLine();
           
            //And get more lines until the number of quotes is even
            while (strReturn.GetNumberOf("\"").IsOdd())
            {
                string strNow = sr.ReadLine();
                strReturn += strNow;
            }
           
            //Then return what we've gotten
            if (strReturn == "")
            {
                return null;
            }
            else
            {
                return strReturn;
            }
        }

        public static int GetNumberOf(this string s, string strSearchString)
        {
            return s.Length - s.Replace(strSearchString, "").Length;
        }

        public static Boolean IsOdd(this int i)
        {
            return i % 2 != 0;
        }
    }

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And then I was able to simply change my original call to

Code:

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while ((line = readFile.ReadEntry()) != null)

---