Group
File Handling in C#
Objective
1. The program can accept the file name and the character to search for as parameters or ask the user to input them.
2. It will read the contents of the specified file.
3. The program will count how many times the specified character appears in the file.
4. The result (the count of the character) will be displayed on the screen.
Create a program to count the amount of times that a certain character is inside a file (of any kind).
Example C# Exercise
Show C# Code
using System;
using System.IO;
class CharacterCounter
{
// Main method: entry point of the program
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// Check if the correct number of arguments is provided
if (args.Length == 2)
{
// Extract arguments: file name and character to count
string fileName = args[0];
char searchChar = args[1][0]; // Take the first character of the second argument
// Call method to count the occurrences of the character in the file
int count = CountCharacterInFile(fileName, searchChar);
// Display the result
Console.WriteLine($"The character '{searchChar}' appears {count} times in the file {fileName}.");
}
else
{
// If arguments are not passed, prompt user for input
Console.WriteLine("Please enter the file name:");
string fileName = Console.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine("Please enter the character to search for:");
char searchChar = Console.ReadLine()[0]; // Read first character entered by the user
// Call method to count the occurrences of the character in the file
int count = CountCharacterInFile(fileName, searchChar);
// Display the result
Console.WriteLine($"The character '{searchChar}' appears {count} times in the file {fileName}.");
}
}
// Method to count the occurrences of a character in a file
static int CountCharacterInFile(string fileName, char searchChar)
{
// Initialize the count to 0
int count = 0;
try
{
// Read all the contents of the file
string content = File.ReadAllText(fileName);
// Loop through each character in the content and check if it matches the search character
foreach (char c in content)
{
if (c == searchChar)
{
count++; // Increment count if a match is found
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// Handle errors if the file is not found or other issues arise
Console.WriteLine($"Error: {ex.Message}");
return 0; // Return 0 in case of an error
}
// Return the total count
return count;
}
}
Output
//Output Example:
Please enter the file name:
example.txt
Please enter the character to search for:
a
The character 'a' appears 5 times in the file example.txt.
//Alternatively, when run with parameters:
count example.txt a
The character 'a' appears 5 times in the file example.txt.