StreamReader.Peek Method

Definition

Returns the next available character but does not consume it.

C#
public override int Peek();

Returns

An integer representing the next character to be read, or -1 if there are no characters to be read or if the stream does not support seeking.

Exceptions

An I/O error occurs.

Examples

The following code example reads lines from a file until the end of the file is reached.

C#
using System;
using System.IO;

class Test
{
    
    public static void Main()
    {
        string path = @"c:\temp\MyTest.txt";

        try
        {
            if (File.Exists(path))
            {
                File.Delete(path);
            }

            using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(path))
            {
                sw.WriteLine("This");
                sw.WriteLine("is some text");
                sw.WriteLine("to test");
                sw.WriteLine("Reading");
            }

            using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(path))
            {

                while (sr.Peek() > -1)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(sr.ReadLine());
                }
            }
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("The process failed: {0}", e.ToString());
        }
    }
}

Remarks

The Peek method returns an integer value in order to determine whether the end of the file, or another error has occurred. This allows a user to first check if the returned value is -1 before casting it to a Char type.

This method overrides TextReader.Peek.

The current position of the StreamReader object is not changed by Peek.

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 1.0, Core 1.1, Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1
UWP 10.0

See also