use Perl

• Standards (Score:2)

  by petdance (2468)

  First, there's not really a "standard" for CSV. It really means whatever someone wants to throw at you. I had a project last year where multiple business partners would send me "CSV" data, and no two were the same. Some quoted every field. Some only quoted fields that needed it. Some escaped double quotes by doubling them. Some used backslashes. It was a mess.

  Second, don't use Text::CSV. Use Text::CSV_XS [cpan.org]. It's got far more parameters for your tuning enjoyment.

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  xoa
  • Re:Standards (Score:1)

    by barbie (2653)

    Text::CSV_XS seemed a bit too much overkill for what I wanted. I have my own patch to Text::CSV now, which handles the extended character set, provided they are contained within quotes.

    Your example still follows the standard as I understand it. Fields can have quotes around them, or the quotes can be omitted if the field doesn't contain the quote character or the field separator. The standard way of escaping double quotes is to double them. Much like SQL in that respect.
    • Re:Standards (Score:1)

      by merijn (853) on 2007.11.05 7:52 (#58826) Homepage

      Text::CSV is quite a bare module, which will be updated *very* soon now.
      
      The new Text::CSV will include a pure perl version of Text::CSV_XS and will itself be just a wrapper. If Text::CSV_XS is installed, it will use it, otherwise, it will used the bundled Text::CSV_PP (or Text::CSV_PurePerl as the snap currently states).
      
      Text::CSV_XS is extremely faster than the pure-perl version(s).
      
      See also http://www.perlmonks.org/?node=617577 [perlmonks.org]

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      Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

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