Reading files into textbox

Reading files into textbox

• aruno

  Hi Vijay,
  
  I agree with the answer already given. You may want to restrict the user from reading .EXE files. There is no practical use of being able to open a .EXE file in a texteditor.
  
  Regards,
  Vikram
  
  

• Kimber6337

  It's not clear why you'd want to display binary file content in a textbox, but assuming you have a good reason, then read on...
  
  Streamreader is for reading text files.   Your data may be munged if it contains null chars, etc..
  
  If you want to read binary files, you can use one of these methods:
  
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html/vagrfwritingtofileopenedforbinaryaccess.asp
  
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp url=/library/en-us/cpguide/html/cpconreadingwritingtonewlycreateddatafile.asp
  
  
  

• rodolfogr

  Why you would want anyone to be able to open an EXE file in a text editor is beyond me.  If they change a single character then the whole executable is useless.  Do you really want to risk that happening   It's the same situation with a bitmap.  If they change one character then the whole image may be destroyed.
  
  Also, remember that executables, etc. are binary files.  The bytes of an EXE file do not represent ASCII or Unicode characters.  When you use a StreamReader to open a binary file, it interprets the binary code as text, and therefore returns gibberish.
  
  

• sinewave

  While I am also puzzled as to why you'd want to do this, the code looks correct. However, if you have a single-line textbox, the characters may be "off-screen," as they are often not clumped together. Make sure your textbox's 'multiline' property is set to true.
  
  
  

• Athan00

  Vikram wrote:

  Hi Vijay, I agree with the answer already given. You may want to restrict the user from reading .EXE files. There is no practical use of being able to open a .EXE file in a texteditor. Regards, Vikram

  
  
  
                      Well  did  you ever try to open an exe in notepad .It does open (though its gibberish).Then why would some company like microsoft be interested in doing so Its the same with me, I want to display any file just like notepad.By the way i would like you  to create a text box and read some files.Then you might know that only characters till some length are being displayed after that there is no display.It would be clear if you try this
                                                                                                                Anyway Thankyou
                                                                                                         (for sparing time for this)
  
  

• jason jones

  And unless you plan on showing a hex layout of the characters in the file, most exe's and other non text files have hidden characters that will not show up in a text box by reading the file directly.
  
  
• Reading files into textbox