You can access a text file using the ODBC data provider. There are two ways to access text files. Either you can create a DSN from the ODBC Data Source Administrator or you access the text file directly in your application. To create a data source for a text file, you go to the ODBC Source Admin, click the New button (or the Add button if you're using Windows XP), and select the Microsoft Text Driver (*.txt,*.csv) option Read more: C# Corner