[2005] saving techniques

[jjpsnet]

Hey, I don't really understand save techniques. For starters, here's what I want to be able to do: I have two columns of textboxes, each column containing related data. Whenever the user clicks the a button(save) I want it to save a file somewhere that contains the information in column one and two, but is able to keep them separate. Then, when an open button is pressed, it needs to be able to read each set of data separately and move them each to separate arrays. So how can I do this?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Search for StreamWriter in this forum, you will find numerous examples of writing to, and reading from, text files. Considering what you are doing, a text file seems like the way to go. You would basically write each of the items sequentially into the file in a set order. To read it, since you know the order, you just read them back out of the file in the reverse order of how you put them in.

[jjpsnet]

ok, I understand a little bit about streamwriter now. However, I don't know the number of textboxes at design time; they are dynamically created. When loading the file, how can I distinguish when I'm changing to the other column?

[stanav]

Just make "sections" in your text file. Some text file like this will work

<Left Column>
this 
is 
some
sample
</Left Column>

<Right Column>
123
456
789
</Right Column>

So when you read the text file line by line, if the line = <Left Colum> then you know that the following lines are text from the textboxes in the left column. You just keep reading them, and for each line, you create a ne textbox for the left column on your form and set its text property = the text of the line. You keep doing this until the line = </Left Column>. Do the same for the right column. With my text file example, you have the left colum with 4 textboxes and the right column with 3 textboxes. Hope you get the idea.

[jjpsnet]

Yes, that makes sense. So to make sections do I just use little tag things? or is that a line of text?--------never mind I understand.