Click button, open xml file, display data to textbox

Question

I click a button in my windows form app, and it opens a file open box. I click the xml file I want to open and I want the data to populate the text fields in my windows form, but I get System.ArgumentException: 'Illegal characters in path.' error on the FileStream line of code.

private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // On click Open the file
    if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
    {
        StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(openFileDialog1.FileName);
        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ContactLead));

        // Save file contents to variable
        var fileResult = sr.ReadToEnd();
        FileStream myFileStream = new FileStream(fileResult, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);

        ContactLead contactLead = (ContactLead)serializer.Deserialize(myFileStream);

        this.textboxFirstName.Text = contactLead.firstname;
        this.textboxLastName.Text = contactLead.lastname;
        this.textboxEmail.Text = contactLead.email;
    }
}

ProgrammingLlama · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-26 02:47:03Z

This is your problem:

var fileResult = sr.ReadToEnd();
FileStream myFileStream = new FileStream(fileResult, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);

You're reading the contents of one file, and then using the contents of that file as the filename for your FileStream. Of course the XML content of that file isn't a valid filename on Windows, or any operating system.

I suspect you really just want to do this:

private void button2_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // On click Open the file
    if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
    {
        // open the file for reading
        using (FileStream myFileStream = new FileStream(openFileDialog1.FileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))
        {
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ContactLead));
            // deserialize the contact from the open file stream
            ContactLead contactLead = (ContactLead)serializer.Deserialize(myFileStream);

            this.textboxFirstName.Text = contactLead.firstname;
            this.textboxLastName.Text = contactLead.lastname;
            this.textboxEmail.Text = contactLead.email;
        }
    }
}

I've taken the liberty of adding a using around the FileStream so that it is properly disposed of after you're done reading from it (otherwise C# will keep the file open).

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