From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2005-10-30T08:40:12+09:00
Subject: Re: csv.rb a start on refactoring.

On Oct 29, 2005, at 12:11 PM, Ara.T.Howard wrote:

> ==========================================
> CSV2[8] => FAILED (RuntimeError)
> ==========================================
> input:
> "a,,,"
> csv:
> ["a", "", "", ""]
> expected:
> ["a", nil, nil, nil]
> ==========================================

Which one of those is more correct must be debatable.  I didn't see a  
concept of nil in the RCF document and nil stringifies to "", of  
course.  Regardless, it's a simple fix:

module CSV2
   def self::parse_line( line )
     csv = Array.new
     line.scan(/\G(?:^|,)(?:"((?>[^"]*)(?>""[^"]*)*)"|([^",]*))/) do
       csv << if $1.nil?
         if $2 == ""
           nil
         else
           $2
         end
       else
         $1.gsub('""', '"')
       end
     end
     csv
   end
end

That gives us two less errors.

> ==========================================
> CSV2[9] => FAILED (RuntimeError)
> ==========================================
> input:
> ","
> csv:
> [""]
> expected:
> [nil, nil]
> ==========================================

You're input there was strip()ed.  It was actually " , ".  The  
expression obviously fails this case either way, but in the RCF I read:

"4...  Spaces are considered part of a field and should not be ignored."

I would interpret that to mean that the correct solution is [" ", "  
"].  Can you please explain why that's wrong?

James Edward Gray II