Getting TXT file to Excel - vb.net

Question

I have the following code to get a text file to an Excel workbook.
Dim XlApp As Excel.Application = New Excel.Application
Dim XlWbk As Excel.Workbook = XlApp.Workbooks.Add
Dim SheetName As String = "Sheet1"
Dim XlWkst As Excel.Worksheet = FindSheet(XlWbk, SheetName)
Dim XlRng As Excel.Range = Nothing
If XlWkst Is Nothing Then
XlWkst = DirectCast(XlWbk.Sheets.Add(After:=XlWbk.Sheets(XlWbk.Sheets.Count), _
Count:=1, Type:=Excel.XlSheetType.xlWorksheet), Excel.Worksheet)
End If
Dim Lines() As String = File.ReadAllLines("C:\TEMP\FlowgateNNL_Mar2011_base.txt")
Dim RC(Lines.Length - 1)() As String
For I As Integer = 0 To Lines.Length - 1
RC(I) = Lines(I).Split(CChar(vbTab))
Next
XlRng = XlWkst.Range("a1")
XlRng.Value = RC
XlApp.Visible = True
This method seems to be the fastest way to read and parse a CSV file for dumping to Excel on my computer. it is choking on XlRng.Value = RC. Excel doesn't seem to like RC.
Any ideas for getting Excel to accept the data?

Answer 1

You are setting the value of a cell to an array that contains an entire CSV? I'm guessing this throws a type error.
This is probably more along the lines of what you want.
Dim XlApp As Excel.Application = New Excel.Application
Dim XlWbk As Excel.Workbook = XlApp.Workbooks.Add
Dim SheetName As String = "Sheet1"
Dim XlWkst As Excel.Worksheet = FindSheet(XlWbk, SheetName)
Dim XlRng As Excel.Range = Nothing
If XlWkst Is Nothing Then
XlWkst = DirectCast(XlWbk.Sheets.Add(After:=XlWbk.Sheets(XlWbk.Sheets.Count), _
Count:=1, Type:=Excel.XlSheetType.xlWorksheet), Excel.Worksheet)
End If
Dim Lines() As String = File.ReadAllLines("C:\TEMP\FlowgateNNL_Mar2011_base.txt")
For I As Integer = 0 To Lines.Length - 1
XlRng = XlWkst.Range("a1").Offset(I, 0)
Dim RC() As String = Lines(I).Split(CChar(vbTab))
For J As Integer = 0 To RC.Length - 1
XlRng = XlRng.Offset(0, J)
XlRng.Value = RC(J)
Next
Next
XlApp.Visible = True

Answer 2

Did you try simply opening the CSV file directly as in:
Dim XlApp As Excel.Application = New Excel.Application
Dim XlWbk As Excel.Workbook = XlApp.Workbooks.Open("C:\TEMP\FlowgateNNL_Mar2011_base.txt")
XlApp.Visible = True

Answer 3

If you have a valid CSV file do yourself a favor and use a specialised CSV datareader which can handle all the weird problems of CSVs (quotes etc.)
Personally, I like http://kbcsv.codeplex.com/ very much - it is simple to use and fast.
Then just dump the interop part and use the EPPLUS Library to write the data to an excel file - it is magnitudes faster and mind boggingly simple.
Your workflow would look like this:
Use KBCSV to load the data to a datatable.
Use EPPLUS's method "LoadFromDataTable" to generate a new excel file and save it.
Done!