Append lines to a file using a StreamWriter

Question

I want to append lines to my file. I am using a StreamWriter:

StreamWriter file2 = new StreamWriter(@"c:\file.txt");
file2.WriteLine(someString);
file2.Close();

The output of my file should be several strings below each other, but I have only one row, which is overwritten every time I run this code.

Is there some way to let the StreamWriter append to an existing file?

Answer 1

Replace this:

StreamWriter file2 = new StreamWriter("c:/file.txt");

with this:

StreamWriter file2 = new StreamWriter("c:/file.txt", true);

true indicates that it appends text.

Answer 2

Replace this line:

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter("c:/file.txt");

with this code:

StreamWriter sw = File.AppendText("c:/file.txt");

and then write your line to the text file like this:

sw.WriteLine("text content");

Answer 3

Another option is using System.IO.File.AppendText

This is equivalent to the StreamWriter overloads others have given.

Also File.AppendAllText may give a slightly easier interface without having to worry about opening and closing the stream. Though you may need to then worry about putting in your own linebreaks. :)

Answer 4

I assume you are executing all of the above code each time you write something to the file. Each time the stream for the file is opened, its seek pointer is positioned at the beginning so all writes end up overwriting what was there before.

You can solve the problem in two ways: either with the convenient

file2 = new StreamWriter("c:/file.txt", true);

or by explicitly repositioning the stream pointer yourself:

file2 = new StreamWriter("c:/file.txt");
file2.BaseStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);

Answer 5

Actually only Jon's answer (Sep 5 '11 at 9:37) with BaseStream.Seek worked for my case. Thanks Jon! I needed to append lines to a zip archived txt file.

using (FileStream zipFS = new FileStream(@"c:\Temp\SFImport\test.zip",FileMode.OpenOrCreate))
{
    using (ZipArchive arch = new ZipArchive(zipFS,ZipArchiveMode.Update))
    {
        ZipArchiveEntry entry = arch.GetEntry("testfile.txt");
        if (entry == null)
        {
            entry = arch.CreateEntry("testfile.txt");
        }
        using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(entry.Open()))
        {
            sw.BaseStream.Seek(0,SeekOrigin.End);
            sw.WriteLine("text content");
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

 using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName,FileMode.Append, FileAccess.Write))
 using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(fs))
 {
    sw.WriteLine(something);
 }