OT: CSV flavors

[Jeff Thies]

I'm writing a little utility to insert/edit CSV files as standard
HTML tables.

I understand that some CSV files do \" instead of "" to deal with double
quotes. What exports CSV that way? I haven't seen it.

I'm trying to figure if I really need to deal with \"!

Jeff

 

[Toby Inkster]

I understand that some CSV files do \" instead of "" to deal with double
quotes. What exports CSV that way? I haven't seen it.

I can imagine that many CSV files exported from SQL databases would do.

Have you considered CSV files with no escaping for double-quotes at all?

My solution is to use *tab*-delimited files and ban the use of tabs and
new lines as part of the data. Dead easy to parse then:

#!/usr/bin/perl
$_ = `cat data`;
@_ = split(/\n/);
print "<table>\n";
while ($_ = shift) {
@a = split(/\t/);
print '<tr><td>' . join('</td><td>',@a) . "</td></tr>\n";
}
print "</table>\n";

 

[Jeff Thies]

Jeff Thies wrote:




I can imagine that many CSV files exported from SQL databases would do.

OK. I'll bear that in mind.

Have you considered CSV files with no escaping for double-quotes at all?

You mean no "" or no \"?

My solution is to use *tab*-delimited files and ban the use of tabs and
new lines as part of the data. Dead easy to parse then:

#!/usr/bin/perl
$_ = `cat data`;
@_ = split(/\n/);
print "<table>\n";
while ($_ = shift) {
@a = split(/\t/);
print '<tr><td>' . join('</td><td>',@a) . "</td></tr>\n";
}
print "</table>\n";

I like tab delimited. Nobody uses tabs in data, but they do use line
feeds. Then you have to count quotes and glue the lines back together.

Thanks!
Jeff