Code for exporting objects in various formats while reporting progress, making it more extensible

Question

Description

A WinForms application has a function to export objects of the following type, in various formats:

class Item
{
    public int id { get; set; }
    public string description { get; set; }
}

At the click of a button in a window, a SaveFileDialog is shown, and currently it provides the option to save the data in .txt, .csv or .xlsx format. Since there are sometimes hundreds or thousands of objects, and the UI should not freeze up, a Task is used to run this operation. This implementation works, but could be improved.

Code

public partial class ExportWindow : Form
{
    // objects to be exported
    List<Item> items;

    // event handler for the "Export" button click
    private async void exportButton_click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
    {
        SaveFileDialog exportDialog = new SaveFileDialog();
        exportDialog.Filter = "Text File (*.txt)|*.txt|Comma-separated values file (*.csv)|*.csv|Excel spreadsheet (*.xlsx)|*.xlsx";
        exportDialog.CheckPathExists = true;
        DialogResult result = exportDialog.ShowDialog();
        if (result == DialogResult.OK)
        {
            var ext = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(saveExportFileDlg.FileName);

            try
            { 
                // update status bar
                // (it is a custom control)
                statusBar.text("Exporting");

                // now export it
                await Task.Run(() =>
                {
                    switch (ext.ToLower())
                    {
                        case ".txt":
                            saveAsTxt(exportDialog.FileName);
                            break;

                        case ".csv":
                            saveAsCsv(exportDialog.FileName);
                            break;
                    
                        case ".xlsx":
                            saveAsExcel(exportDialog.FileName);
                            break;

                        default:
                            // shouldn't happen
                            throw new Exception("Specified export format not supported.");
                    }
                });
            }
            catch (System.IO.IOException ex)
            {
                 statusBar.text("Export failed");
                 logger.logError("Export failed" + ex.Message + "\n" + ex.StackTrace);

                 return;
            }
        }
    }

    private delegate void updateProgressDelegate(int percentage);

    public void updateProgress(int percentage)
    {
        if (statusBar.InvokeRequired)
        {
            var d = updateProgressDelegate(updateProgress);
            statusBar.Invoke(d, percentage);
        }
        else
        {
            _updateProgress(percentage);
        }
    }

    private void saveAsTxt(string filename)
    {
        IProgress<int> progress = new Progress<int>(updateProgress);
        
        // save the text file, while reporting progress....
    }

    private void saveAsCsv(string filename)
    {
        IProgress<int> progress = new Progress<int>(updateProgress);
        
        using (StreamWriter writer = StreamWriter(filename))
        {
            // write the headers and the data, while reporting progres...
        }
    }

    private void saveAsExcel(string filename)
    {
        IProgress<int> progress = Progress<int>(updateProgress);

        // EPPlus magic to write the data, while reporting progress...
    }
}

Questions

How can this be refactored to make it more extensible? That is, if I wanted to add support for more file types, make it easy and quicker to modify. The switch statement could get very long. Essentially, how to comply with the Open/Closed principle?

Answer 1

Creating class for each of extension could be a way. Than just iterate thru some list or by using reflection, so if you will want to add support for new extension you will have to just create a new class instead of touching ExportWindow