StreamReader::Peek Method ()

.NET Framework (current version)

Returns the next available character but does not consume it.

Namespace: System.IO
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

public:
virtual int Peek() override

Return Value

Type: System::Int32

An integer representing the next character to be read, or -1 if there are no characters to be read or if the stream does not support seeking.

Exceptions

Exception	Condition
IOException	An I/O error occurs.

The Peek method returns an integer value in order to determine whether the end of the file, or another error has occurred. This allows a user to first check if the returned value is -1 before casting it to a Char type.

This method overrides TextReader::Peek.

The current position of the StreamReader object is not changed by Peek.

Examples

The following code example reads lines from a file until the end of the file is reached.

C++

using namespace System;
using namespace System::IO;

int main()
{
   String^ path = "c:\\temp\\MyTest.txt";
   try
   {
      if ( File::Exists( path ) )
      {
         File::Delete( path );
      }
      StreamWriter^ sw = gcnew StreamWriter( path );
      try
      {
         sw->WriteLine( "This" );
         sw->WriteLine( "is some text" );
         sw->WriteLine( "to test" );
         sw->WriteLine( "Reading" );
      }
      finally
      {
         delete sw;
      }

      StreamReader^ sr = gcnew StreamReader( path );
      try
      {
         while ( sr->Peek() > -1 )
         {
            Console::WriteLine( sr->ReadLine() );
         }
      }
      finally
      {
         delete sr;
      }
   }
   catch ( Exception^ e )
   {
      Console::WriteLine( "The process failed: {0}", e );
   }
}

Version Information

Universal Windows Platform
Available since 8
.NET Framework
Available since 1.1
Portable Class Library
Supported in: portable .NET platforms
Silverlight
Available since 2.0
Windows Phone Silverlight
Available since 7.0
Windows Phone
Available since 8.1