How to: Read Text from a File

The following code examples show how to read text from a text file. The second example notifies you when the end of the file is detected. This functionality can also be achieved by using the ReadAllLines or ReadAllText methods.

Example

Imports System
Imports System.IO

Class Test
    Public Shared Sub Main()
        Try
            ' Create an instance of StreamReader to read from a file.
            Using sr As StreamReader = New StreamReader("TestFile.txt")
                Dim line As String
                ' Read and display the lines from the file until the end 
                ' of the file is reached.
                Do
                    line = sr.ReadLine()
                    Console.WriteLine(Line)
                Loop Until line Is Nothing
            End Using
        Catch E As Exception
            ' Let the user know what went wrong.
            Console.WriteLine("The file could not be read:")
            Console.WriteLine(E.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub
End Class

using System;
using System.IO;

class Test 
{
    public static void Main() 
    {
        try 
        {
            // Create an instance of StreamReader to read from a file.
            // The using statement also closes the StreamReader.
            using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("TestFile.txt")) 
            {
                String line;
                // Read and display lines from the file until the end of 
                // the file is reached.
                while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null) 
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(line);
                }
            }
        }
        catch (Exception e) 
        {
            // Let the user know what went wrong.
            Console.WriteLine("The file could not be read:");
            Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
        }
    }
}

Option Explicit On 
Option Strict On
Imports System
Imports System.IO
Public Class TextFromFile
    Private Const FILE_NAME As String = "MyFile.txt"
    Public Shared Sub Main()
        If Not File.Exists(FILE_NAME) Then
            Console.WriteLine("{0} does not exist.", FILE_NAME)
            Return
        End If
        Using sr As StreamReader = File.OpenText(FILE_NAME)
            Dim input As String
            input = sr.ReadLine()
            While Not input Is Nothing
                Console.WriteLine(input)
                input = sr.ReadLine()
            End While
            Console.WriteLine("The end of the stream has been reached.")
        End Using
    End Sub
End Class

using System;
using System.IO;
public class TextFromFile 
{
    private const string FILE_NAME = "MyFile.txt";
    public static void Main(String[] args) 
    {
        if (!File.Exists(FILE_NAME)) 
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} does not exist.", FILE_NAME);
            return;
        }
        using (StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(FILE_NAME))
        {
            String input;
            while ((input=sr.ReadLine())!=null) 
            {
                Console.WriteLine(input);
            }
            Console.WriteLine ("The end of the stream has been reached.");
        }
    }

Robust Programming

This code creates a StreamReader that points to MyFile.txt through a call to File.OpenText. StreamReader.ReadLine returns each line as a string. When there are no more characters to read, a message is displayed to that effect, and the stream is closed.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Create a Directory Listing

How to: Read and Write to a Newly Created Data File

How to: Open and Append to a Log File

How to: Write Text to a File

How to: Read Characters from a String

How to: Write Characters to a String

Concepts

Basic File I/O

Reference

StreamReader

File.OpenText

StreamReader.ReadLine