How to Read text File in Xamarin

Question

Doing this in C# for Windows is trivial, but for Xamarin (Android), it's not. I want the user to be able to navigate around their device, select a file and read it all.

Answer 1

Hello,

It is recommended to use Xamarin.Essentials: File Picker to implement this feature.

This function is mainly divided into two parts: opening a text file and reading the contents of the file.

For opening a text file, you could refer to the following code sample:

   var customFileType =  
   new FilePickerFileType(new Dictionary<DevicePlatform, IEnumerable<string>>  
   {  
           { DevicePlatform.Android, new[] { "text/plain" } },  
   });  
       var options = new PickOptions  
       {  
           PickerTitle = "Please select a text file",  
           FileTypes = customFileType,  
       };  
       var result = await FilePicker.PickAsync(options);  

Then, you could read the content from this text file via the following code:

   if (result != null && result.FileName.EndsWith("txt", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))  
   {  
           var content = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(result.FullPath);  
           label.Text = content;  
   }  

Best Regards,

Alec Liu.

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