Why is my string being converted to ASCII when it's read in?

[Alex Dransfield]

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;

namespace LinearSearch
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
       {
            string toFind = "";
            Console.WriteLine("Linear Search");
            Console.Write("Enter the item to find: ");
            toFind = Convert.ToString(Console.Read());
            Console.WriteLine(toFind);
            StreamReader sr = new StreamReader("Cars.txt");
            ArrayList al = new ArrayList();
            String lines = String.Empty;
            while ((lines = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
            {
                lines = sr.ReadLine();
                al.Add(lines);
            }
            foreach (string line in al)
            {
                if(line == toFind)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("The item of {0} was found", line);
                    break;
                }
            }
            sr.Close();
            Console.WriteLine("Unable to find the item");
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

I'm not sure why this is happening, but whenever I enter a string into the console it is being converted to the ASCII equivalent. For example, if I read in 'A' it is converted to 65, and because of this the item in the list is not found. What's going on here?

[Aimee Bailey]

Couple of things that may help...

1. An easier way of reading a file, and representing each line in an array is this:

string[] al = File.ReadAllLines("cars.txt");

2. Console.Read() actually returns the integer value of the next character read. Instead use Console.ReadLin e()


bobs your uncle, things should go a bit smoother :)


Aimee.