Reading and Writing from a txt file?

Question

I am creating a game with c# and i have occurred a problem. I want my game to save curtain labels to a txt file here ill give you a example:

Label1.Text = "Character Name: "
Label2.Text = "Level: "
Label3.Text = "Exp: "

Now what i wanted to do was to retrieve "Character Name: [Name]" From a txt file? But i also wanted to save the name to a txt file when you exit the game. so here might be a better example:

I want to retrieve Level: [LVL] From a txt file and when the gamer has finished and exit my game i want it to overwrite the existing line that was there with there new level?

I think I need to use StringReader or StringWriter.

Answer 1

You may try to use XML for the settings file. Here is a very simple example:

Create a new XML file, fill it with the character name and save:

XElement x = new XElement("Settings");
x.Add(new XElement("CharacterName", "John Doe"));
x.Save("1.xml");

Load the saved xml and print the output:

XElement loaded = XElement.Load("1.xml");
Console.WriteLine(loaded.Element("CharacterName").Value);

Here is an MSDN article to start with:LINQ to XML

---

If .NetFramework 3.5 and higher is not available, you may use classes from System.Xml namespace. See

1. XML in .NET: .NET Framework XML Classes and C# Offer Simple, Scalable Data Manipulation
2. Manipulate XML data with XPath and XmlDocument
3. Writing XML with the XmlDocument class

...just google with C# xmldocument.

Answer 2

Here's a quick sample using XML serialization with a data model. Make sure you have a using System.Xml.Serialization; namespace import line at the top of your file.

Declare the data you wish to save/load as a simple class, for example:

public class SaveData
{
    public string CharacterName { get; set; }
    public int Level { get; set; }
    public int Experience { get; set; }
}

When you want to save, build that data model:

SaveData saveState = new SaveData()
{
    CharacterName = myCharacter.Name,
    Level = myCharacter.Level,
    Experience = myCharacter.Experience
};

To save to a file, use the XmlSerializer class and open a stream to a file to serialize it to:

public void SaveStateToFile(SaveData state)
{
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SaveData));
    using (TextWriter writeFileStream = new StreamWriter(@"C:\savefile.xml"))
    {
        serializer.Serialize(writeFileStream, state);
    }
}

That will create an xml file with the following content for example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SaveData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <CharacterName>John</CharacterName>
  <Level>10</Level>
  <Experience>9001</Experience>
</SaveData>

So that should be pretty easy to edit if needed. To load the data back:

public SaveData LoadStateFromFile()
{
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SaveData));
    using (FileStream readFileStream = new FileStream(@"C:\savefile.xml", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))
    {
        return (SaveData)serializer.Deserialize(readFileStream);
    }
}

That should give you a nice type-safe data model to then rebind your GUI as desired:

SaveData loadedData = LoadStateFromFile();
Console.WriteLine(loadedData.CharacterName); //John
Console.WriteLine(loadedData.Level); //10
Console.WriteLine(loadedData.Experience); //9001

Label1.Text = "Character Name: " + loadedData.CharacterName;
Label2.Text = "Level: " + loadedData.Level;
Label3.Text = "Exp: " + loadedData.Experience;

Answer 3

You can try SQLite. It's database that save in text file. You will have capability to organize your data better than using your own plain text.

Answer 4

Another option is to use old INI files. Here is a great An INI file handling class using C# example that will help you to deal with that. Here is an example of using it:

Create a INIFile like this

INIFile ini = new INIFile("C:\\test.ini");

Use IniWriteValue to write a new value to a specific key in a section or use IniReadValue to read a value FROM a key in a specific Section.

Answer 5

This is the code i ended up using and it works fine:

XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
XmlNode rootNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Info");
xmlDoc.AppendChild(rootNode);

XmlNode userNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Username");
userNode.InnerText = Username.Text;
rootNode.AppendChild(userNode);

xmlDoc.Save(gameFolder + Username.Text + ".sav");

I used the sources from @Konstantin Vasilcov