Re: Tab delimited file with Python CSV

From: Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_nyob>
Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:59:01 -0500
To: CODE4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
On 11/25/13 1:38 PM, Joe Hourcle wrote:
> On Nov 25, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>
>> Ah, but what if the data itself has tabs!  Doh!
>>
>> It can be a mess either way.  There are standards (or conventions?)
>> for escaping internal commas in CSV -- which doesn't mean the
>> software that was used to produce the CSV, or the software you are
>> using to read it, actually respects them.
>
> You don't have to escape the commas, you just have to double-quote
> the string.  If you want to have a double quote, you put two in a
> row:, eg:
>
> "He said, ""hello"""

Right, I would call that a form of escaping.

I can stay blissfully ignorant of what form of escaping is required by
CSV and if I'm doing it right by just using a library, heh.

Out of curiosity, let's see what the ruby stdlib csv parser/writer 
writes for various things.

Yep, just doublequotes anything with internal commas or quotes.

###
ordinary,row,with a value with spaces
a row with,"several, internal, commas"
or even,"internal ""quotes"", as the kids say"
Received on Mon Nov 25 2013 - 13:59:49 EST