Using the <i class="emphasis">StreamReader</i> Class

Using the StreamReader Class

You can use the StreamReader class to read text data from files; here's the hierarchy of this class:

Object
   MarshalByRefObject
      TextReader
         StreamReader

You can find the more notable public properties of the StreamReader class in Table 13.14 and the more notable methods of this class in Table 13.15.

Table 13.14: Noteworthy public properties of *StreamReader* objects.
Property	Means
BaseStream	Holds the underlying stream, giving you access to that stream's properties and methods.
CurrentEncoding	Gets the character encoding for the stream reader.

Table 13.15: Noteworthy public methods of *StreamReader* objects.
Method	Means
Close	Closes the stream reader.
DiscardBufferedData	Discards the data in the buffer.
Peek	Looks ahead and returns the next available character (but does not actually read it as Read would, so does not advance the read/write position). Returns -1 if there is no more data waiting to be read.
Read	Reads the next character or characters.
ReadLine	Reads a line of text from the stream, returning that data as a string.
ReadToEnd	Reads from the current position to the end of the stream.