Best approach for merging text files using arrays

Best approach for merging text files using arrays

What is the best approach for merging a bunch of text files together using arrays?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    When you register, you'll begin receiving targeted emails from my team of award-winning writers. Our goal is to provide a unique online resource for developers, architects and development managers tasked with building and maintaining enterprise applications using Visual Basic, C# and the Microsoft .NET platform.

    Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchWinDevelopment.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchWinDevelopment.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

You question puzzles me. What do arrays have to do with your ability to "merge" files of any type? If you are simply trying to "merge" the data of several files into one larger file, I would recommend simply opening each file and reading directly into a separate destination file. Rinse and repeat reading each source file into and appending it to the end of the choosen destination file. Try creating a stream to read from the source file, and a stream to write to the output file. Read from one, and write to the other.

If you are trying to read everything into memory, then I would suggest creating a wrapper class to help identify the data from the file along with the file information, so you can keep things organized. After that, there isn't much I can advise you on.

This was first published in February 2005

Back to top