Problem Statement

Load the entire contents of some text file as a single string variable. If applicable, discuss: encoding selection, the possibility of memory-mapping. Of course, in practice one should avoid reading an entire file at once if the file is large and the task can be accomplished incrementally instead (in which case check File IO); this is for those cases where having the entire file is actually what is wanted.

Let's start with the solution:

Imports System.IO

Public Class Form1

  ' Read all of the lines of a file.
  ' Function assumes that the file exists.
  Private Sub ReadLines(ByVal FileName As String)

    Dim oReader As New StreamReader(FileName)
    Dim sLine As String = oReader.ReadToEnd()

    oReader.Close()

  End Sub

End Class