Csv parsers are a 'mare...

..so don't write your own, and dont adapt a half written one from somewhere and get stuck in a nightmare of parsing strings, using regex and still end up with problems. Just use FileHelpers - seriously, this is a brilliant piece of magic, and deserves much praise! The FileHelpers are a free and easy to use .NET library to import/export data from fixed length or delimited records in files, strings or streams. Filehelpers site