How to ignore separator definition while parsing a file? - csv

Question

I'm using CsvHelper, but my parsing is crashing if the first line of the file is like sep=,
I'm doing it like this:
using var reader = new StreamReader(fileStream);
using var csv = new CsvReader(reader, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);
return csv.GetRecords<ClassToReadInto>()
.Select(t => new ClassToMapTo
{
// map goes here
})
.ToList();
What happens is:
CsvHelper.HeaderValidationException: Header with name 'Type'[0] was not found. // and a bunch of other names
So CsvHelper is just trying to treat the first row as a header row. I doubt it even sets the separator from this row. To work this around I only came up with something like this:
while (csv.Read())
{
csv.ReadHeader();
try
{
csv.ValidateHeader(typeof(CsvOrder));
break;
}
catch { }
}
Is there "the right way" to do so?

Answer 1

If it's always there, you can just read a row first.
csv.Read();
var records = csv.GetRecords<ClassToReadInto>();
If it's not always there, you'll need to do a check.
csv.Read();
if (!csv[0].StartsWith("sep="))
{
// The first row is the header, so we need to read it.
csv.ReadHeader();
}
var records = csv.GetRecords<ClassToReadInto>();