CSV Converter - C# Programming Exercise

// Import necessary namespaces for file handling
using System; // Basic input/output operations
using System.IO; // FileStream and StreamReader for reading and writing files
using System.Text; // StringBuilder for efficient string handling

class CSVConverter // Main class for the CSV conversion program
{
    static void Main(string[] args) // Entry point of the program
    {
        // Check if the correct number of arguments (input and output files) are provided
        if (args.Length != 2) // If not enough arguments are provided
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Usage: CSVConverter  "); // Show usage instructions
            return; // Exit the program if the arguments are incorrect
        }

        string inputFile = args[0]; // The input CSV file name
        string outputFile = args[1]; // The output text file name

        // Check if the input CSV file exists
        if (!File.Exists(inputFile)) // If the input file does not exist
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Error: The input CSV file does not exist."); // Inform the user about the missing file
            return; // Exit the program if the input file is missing
        }

        try
        {
            // Open the input CSV file for reading
            using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(inputFile)) // StreamReader to read the CSV file
            {
                // Create the output text file for writing
                using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(outputFile, false, Encoding.UTF8)) // StreamWriter to write the text file
                {
                    string line; // Variable to store each line from the CSV file

                    // Read the CSV file line by line
                    while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null) // Continue until the end of the file
                    {
                        // Remove leading and trailing spaces from each line
                        line = line.Trim();

                        // Split the line by comma and remove any surrounding quotes
                        string[] parts = line.Split(','); // Split the line into parts based on commas

                        // Clean up quotes around each part
                        for (int i = 0; i < parts.Length; i++)
                        {
                            parts[i] = parts[i].Trim('"'); // Remove quotes from each part
                        }

                        // Write each part to the output file on a separate line
                        foreach (string part in parts) // Loop through each part of the line
                        {
                            writer.WriteLine(part); // Write each part to a new line in the output file
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            Console.WriteLine("CSV file has been successfully converted to text format."); // Inform the user that the conversion is complete
        }
        catch (Exception ex) // Catch any exceptions that occur during the file reading or writing process
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"An error occurred: {ex.Message}"); // Display the error message
        }
    }
}