How to convert carriage returns into actual line breaks

Question

I have a text file that I downloaded from this (it's just the English dictionary) which displays fine in a browser, but when I open it in Notepad it doesn't recognize the line breaks. I thought a simple C# application could detect the flavor of carriage returns they use and turn them into actual line breaks and spit out a more nicely formatted txt file but I've failed with techniques like String.Replace("\r", "\n"); that I thought would be easy tricks. How are these carriage returns encoded and how can I reformat the file to make it readable in something like Notepad? C# is preferred because that's what I'm used to, but if it's easier in some other method I'll be happy to consider alternatives.

Answer 1

If you really want to do this in c# all you need to do is this...

File.WriteAllLines("outfile.txt", File.ReadAllLines("infile.txt"));

... If you want slightly more complex yet faster and less memory do it this way ...

using (var reader = new StreamReader("infile.txt"))
using (var writer = new StreamWriter("outfile.txt"))
    while (!reader.EndOfStream)
        writer.WriteLine(reader.ReadLine());

... if you really want to overkill it as an excuse to use extension methods and LINQ then do this ...

//Sample use
//"infile.txt".ReadFileAsLines()
//            .WriteAsLinesTo("outfile.txt");
public static class ToolKit
{
    public static IEnumerable<string> ReadFileAsLines(this string infile)
    {
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(infile))
            throw new ArgumentNullException("infile");
        if (!File.Exists(infile))
            throw new FileNotFoundException("File Not Found", infile);

        using (var reader = new StreamReader(infile))
            while (!reader.EndOfStream)
                yield return reader.ReadLine();
    }
    public static void WriteAsLinesTo(this IEnumerable<string> lines, string outfile)
    {
        if (lines == null)
            throw new ArgumentNullException("lines");
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(outfile))
            throw new ArgumentNullException("outfile");

        using (var writer = new StreamWriter(outfile))
            foreach (var line in lines)
                writer.WriteLine(line);
    }
}