Export To CSV For Windows Store Apps

Scope

In this article we will show a sample to export data from a ListView to a CSV file. A CSV file can be opened in Excel, that is why I suggest it for exporting the data to Excel.

Introduction

In this sample we will show a sample to export data shown in ListView, to a CSV file.

Description

This sample could be called "Export to Excel", but it is not supported, the only way is to write the data in a CSV file that can be opened in Excel.

Here is the class diagram:



Here is the class for converting the data into a CSV file:

public class CsvExport<T> where T : class
    {
        public IList<T> Objects;

        public CsvExport(IList<T> objects)
        {
            Objects = objects;
        }

        public string Export()
        {
            return Export(true);
        }

        public string Export(bool includeHeaderLine)
        {

            var sb = new StringBuilder();

            //Get properties using reflection.
           var propertyInfos = typeof(T).GetTypeInfo();

            if (includeHeaderLine)
            {
                //add header line.
                foreach (var propertyInfo in propertyInfos.DeclaredProperties)
                {
                    sb.Append(propertyInfo.Name).Append(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ListSeparator);
                }
                sb.Remove(sb.Length - 1, 1).AppendLine();
            }

            //add value for each property.
            foreach (T obj in Objects)
            {
                foreach (var propertyInfo in propertyInfos.DeclaredProperties)
                {
                    sb.Append(MakeValueCsvFriendly(propertyInfo.GetValue(obj,null))).Append(System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ListSeparator);
                }
                sb.Remove(sb.Length - 1, 1).AppendLine();
            }

            return sb.ToString();
        }

        //export to a file.
        public async void ExportToFile(string path)
        {
           var storageFolder = KnownFolders.DocumentsLibrary;
           var file = await storageFolder.CreateFileAsync(path, CreationCollisionOption.ReplaceExisting);
           await FileIO.WriteTextAsync(file, Export());
        }

        //export as binary data.
        public byte[] ExportToBytes()
        {
            return Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(Export());
        }

        //get the csv value for field.
        private string MakeValueCsvFriendly(object value)
        {
            if (value == null) return "";

            if (value is DateTime)
            {
                if (((DateTime)value).TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds == 0)
                    return ((DateTime)value).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd");
                return ((DateTime)value).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
            }
            string output = value.ToString();

            if (output.Contains(",") || output.Contains("\""))
                output = '"' + output.Replace("\"", "\"\"") + '"';

            return output;

        }
    }

There is an important point in that class.

The ListSeparator that you have defined in:



Can be found programmatically using System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ListSeparator.

But is depends on the list of languages preferences:



If I choose English the ListSeparator is "," (comma) and for my Excel it is ";" (semicolon) because that is what I have in my regional settings.

If I choose Portugues then the ListSeparator is ";" (semicolon) and for my Excel it also is ";" (semicolon) and it works well.

Running the app



The myexportresult.csv file opened in Excel:



Source Code Files

• BoardItem is my item that has Name, Value and Count properties
• ConvertingToCSVFileViewModel: is my view model to connect data with the view (I use binding)
• CsvExport is the class that convert the data into CSV file.

Source Code

The source code is available in MSDN Samples