PocketCsvReader 2.69.0

PocketCsvReader

PocketCsvReader reads CSV and other structured text through forward-only data readers and streaming row outputs. Optional packages support JSON/JSONC, NDJSON, fixed-width, LTSV, logfmt, web logs, and security logs. The projects target .NET 8, 9, and 10.

Documentation · Installation · Contributing

Packages

Columnar JSON

Install PocketCsvReader.Arrow.ColumnarJson and import PocketCsvReader.Arrow and PocketCsvReader.Arrow.ColumnarJson. Use new ArrowIntegrationJsonReader() for Arrow fixtures, new ClickHouseJsonColumnsReader(schema) for JSONColumns, or ClickHouseJsonColumnsReader.WithMetadata() for JSONColumnsWithMetadata.

var reader = ClickHouseJsonColumnsReader.WithMetadata();
await foreach (var batch in reader.ToArrowBatchesAsync("export.json"))
{
    using (batch)
        Console.WriteLine(batch.Length);
}

Use ToArrowStreamAsync to inspect the Arrow schema before reading batches. Dispose the returned stream and each batch. Supplied .NET streams stay open by default. ClickHouse decodes each value into Arrow buffers as it reads and produces one batch per document. JSONColumnsWithMetadata requires meta before data. Integration JSON buffers one fixture batch at a time and requires schema before batches.

Integration JSON supports primitive numeric types, booleans, UTF-8, binary and fixed-size binary, dates, times, timestamps, durations, Decimal128, Decimal256, and null. ClickHouse metadata maps booleans, 8- through 64-bit integers, floats, strings, fixed strings, dates, decimals, and single-level arrays of supported types. Nullable controls field nullability. LowCardinality uses its underlying value type. Unsupported types are reported with the field name.

Use ToLazyArrowStream or ToLazyArrowStreamAsync to decode only the columns you access. Both readers expose the schema before reading records.

using var stream = await reader.ToLazyArrowStreamAsync("export.json");
while (await stream.ReadNextRecordAsync() is { } record)
{
    using (record)
        Console.WriteLine(record.Column("id").Length);
}

For a file path, lazy records share the original read-only handle and retain a packed index of value byte boundaries. The index covers every column and lets the first Column call read and decode the requested values directly. Keep the source bytes stable while any record is alive. For a supplied stream, each record stages its raw columns in a temporary file. Records can outlive the input reader in either case. The first Column call can perform synchronous I/O and report conversion errors. Later calls return the cached array. Dispose each record to release its arrays and backing storage.

First example

dotnet add package PocketCsvReader

using System.Text;
using PocketCsvReader.Configuration;

var csv = new CsvReaderBuilder()
    .WithDialect(d => d.WithHeader().WithLineTerminator("\n"))
    .Build();
using var stream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Id,Name\n1,Ada\n"));
using var reader = csv.ToDataReader(stream);
while (reader.Read())
    Console.WriteLine($"{reader.GetInt32(0)}: {reader.GetString(1)}");
// 1: Ada

See output models, reader filtering, object mapping, async reading, inference, and performance guidance for complete behavior and limitations.

Shared ownership, null, conversion, and performance contracts have their authoritative home in the documentation rather than duplicated README sections.