Parse CSV where headers contain spaces with CsvHelper

After lots of struggling with this, here's what worked for me. I"m using version 3.

        var config = new CsvConfiguration(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)
        {
            PrepareHeaderForMatch = args => args.Header.Replace(" ","")
        };

        using (var reader = new StreamReader("my_csv_file.csv"))
        using (var csv = new CsvReader(reader, config))

I believe I'm creating a configuration (config) that appends or modifies InvariantCulture and uses the Replace function in C# to remove the spaces. So far it's working for me.

Based on CsvHelper Documentation, there are several ways that we can achieve our desired results.

1. Ignore White Space from Headers (which I believe should solve your problem easily)

In CsvHelper 3 or later, use PrepareHeaderForMatch (documented at http://joshclose.github.io/CsvHelper/configuration#headers) to remove whitespace from headers:

csv.Configuration.PrepareHeaderForMatch =
    header => Regex.Replace(header, @"\s", string.Empty)

In CsvHelper 2, set the IgnoreHeaderWhiteSpace flag which tells the reader to ignore white space in the headers when matching the columns to the properties by name.

reader.Configuration.IgnoreHeaderWhiteSpace = true;

2. Read Manually

We can read each field manually like:

var reader = new CsvReader(sr);
do
{
    reader.Read();                   
    var record=new DataRecord();

    record.TimeOfDay=reader.GetField<string>("Time of Day");
    record.ProcessName=reader.GetField<string>("Process Name");
    record.PID=reader.GetField<string>("PID");
    record.Operation=reader.GetField<string>("Operation");
    record.Path=reader.GetField<string>("Path");
    record.Result=reader.GetField<string>("Result");
    record.Detail=reader.GetField<string>("Detail");
    record.ImagePath=reader.GetField<string>("Image Path");

} while (!reader.IsRecordEmpty());

3. Class Mapping:

We can manually map between our class's properties and the headings in the CSV file using name class mapping like this:

public sealed class DataRecordMap:CsvClassMap<DataRecord>
{
    public DataRecordMap()
    {
         Map( m => m.TimeOfDay).Name("Time Of Day");
         Map( m => m.ProcessName).Name("Process Name");
         Map( m => m.PID).Name("PID");   
         Map( m => m.Operation).Name("Operation");    
         Map( m => m.Path).Name("Path");
         Map( m => m.Result).Name("Result");
         Map( m => m.Detail).Name("Detail");
         Map( m => m.ImagePath).Name("Image Path");
     }
}

Then we should register it using:

reader.Configuration.RegisterClassMap<DataRecordMap>();

The library supports attributes now. You would want to use the Name attribute.

using CsvHelper.Configuration.Attributes;

public class DataRecord
{
    [Name("Time of Day")]
    public string TimeOfDay { get; set; }

    [Name("Process Name")]
    public string ProcessName { get; set; }

    public string PID { get; set; }
    public string Operation { get; set; }
    public string Path { get; set; }
    public string Result { get; set; }
    public string Detail { get; set; }

    [Name("Image Path")]
    public string ImagePath { get; set; }

    public static IEnumerable<DataRecord> ParseDataRecords(Stream file)
    {
        using (var sr = new StreamReader(file))
        using (var csv = new CsvReader(sr))
        {
            foreach (var record in csv.GetRecords<DataRecord>())
            {
                yield return record;
            }
        }
    }
}