Hi,
I have a bunch of files containing lines as comma-seperated values. Unfortunately, the character used for quoting is a single quote (') and not the double quote ("). How can I tell the csv library (or fastercsv or any other csv-parsing library) which character is used for quoting? Some of the files contain fields like 'quoted, but with comma', which are seperated into two fields at the comma:
irb(main):003:0> line = "one, 'quoted', 'quoted, but with comma'"
=> "one, 'quoted', 'quoted, but with comma'"
irb(main):006:0> CSV::parse_line('some words "some quoted text" some more words', ' ')
=> ["some", "words", "some quoted text", "some", "more", "words"]
irb(main):001:0> require 'rubygems'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> require_gem 'fastercsv'
=> true
irb(main):004:0> line.parse_csv
=> ["one", " 'quoted'", " 'quoted", " but with comma'"]
The output should be ["one", "'quoted'", "'quoted, but with comma'"]
I have a bunch of files containing lines as comma-seperated values. Unfortunately, the character used for quoting is a single quote (') and not the double quote ("). How can I tell the csv library (or fastercsv or any other csv-parsing library) which character is used for quoting?
I'm not aware of a way to change it for either library, sadly. If your data is simple, you might get away with manipulating it into shape:
>> require "csv"
=> true
>> line = "one,'quoted','quoted, but with comma'"
=> "one,'quoted','quoted, but with comma'"
>> CSV.parse_line(line.tr("'", '"'))
=> ["one", "quoted", "quoted, but with comma"]
Unfortunately, on of the examples you showed is more complicated than that:
>> line = 'some words "some quoted text" some more words'
=> "some words \"some quoted text\" some more words"
>> CSV.parse_line('"' + line.gsub('"', '""').tr("'", '"') + '"')
=> ["some words \"some quoted text\" some more words"]
Those transforms need to be done on a field by field basis though, to correctly convert data like that.
Hope that helps.
James Edward Gray II
ยทยทยท
On Mar 28, 2006, at 8:03 AM, Jens Auer wrote: