Bodu.Text.Delimited

Bodu.Text.Delimited reads and writes delimited tabular text - RFC 4180 CSV, TSV, and the dialects in between - as a standalone System.Text.Json-shaped library: a forward-only ref struct reader/writer pair over UTF-8 bytes, a typed record serializer with a truly incremental streaming surface, a mutable node DOM, and a read-only document DOM. It is one of the three Bodu line formats and shares the Bodu.Text.Serialization attribute, naming-policy, and callback vocabulary with every other Bodu serializer.

The wire is string-only: the serializer converts scalars with InvariantCulture at the binding layer, and real-world input is handled through explicit dialect policies - field-count mismatches, malformed records, and duplicate headers each have an opt-in leniency knob rather than a silent default. For trimming and ahead-of-time compilation, the serializer also accepts a compile-time record factory in place of reflection.

Part of the Text & Serialization topic.

Install

dotnet add package Bodu.Text.Delimited

Targets net8.0. Depends on Bodu.Text.Serialization and Bodu.Core. Also available through the Bodu.Text.Formats umbrella package.

Headline types

Type	Purpose
Utf8DelimitedReader / Utf8DelimitedWriter	Forward-only, allocation-free token machines, configured by DelimitedReaderOptions / DelimitedWriterOptions.
DelimitedSerializer	Records ↔ text: Serialize / Deserialize<TRecord> over strings, UTF-8 spans, buffer writers, and streams; the incremental DeserializeAsyncEnumerableAsync<TRecord> / SerializeAsync(Stream, IAsyncEnumerable<TRecord>) pair; and the reflection-free overloads over IDelimitedRecordFactory<TRecord>.
DelimitedSerializerOptions / DelimitedSerializerDefaults	Naming policy, case sensitivity, IncludeFields, Delimiter, Quote, NoHeader; General / Web presets.
DelimitedFieldCountBehavior / DelimitedMalformedRecordBehavior / DelimitedDuplicateHeaderBehavior	The dialect policies.
DelimitedNode / DelimitedArray / DelimitedObject / DelimitedValue	Mutable DOM - parse, edit, write back.
DelimitedDocument / DelimitedElement / DelimitedProperty	Read-only, disposable document model.
DelimitedRecordAttribute	Marks a partial POCO for the source generator.
DelimitedFormatException / DelimitedSerializationException	Malformed input (with position) vs a record that cannot bind.

A first round trip

using Bodu.Text.Delimited;

public sealed class Trade
{
    public string Symbol { get; set; } = "";
    public int Quantity { get; set; }
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

const string csv = "Symbol,Quantity,Price\nMSFT,100,412.5\n";

List<Trade> trades = DelimitedSerializer.Deserialize<Trade>(csv);   // trades[0].Price → 412.5m
string back = DelimitedSerializer.Serialize(trades);                 // header row + one record

Where to go next

• Line formats introduction, Core concepts, and Getting started - the umbrella trio shared by all three formats.
• Using delimited (CSV / TSV) - documents, typed records, streaming, dialects, dirty input.
• Reflection-free binding - the [DelimitedRecord] source generator and the factory overloads.
• Runnable samples - the DelimitedData sample project.
• API reference - Bodu.Text.Delimited.