From: Ara.T.Howard@...
Date: 2005-06-03T05:20:24+09:00
Subject: Re: Nuby problem w/CSV, tab-delimited files & embedded double-quotes

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 rpardee@comcast.net wrote:

> Hey All,
>
> I've got a file of tab-delimited data that I need to read in.  Up until
> today this approach has worked wonderfully:
>
>   this_file = CSV.open(decrypted_file, "r", "\t")
>   header = this_file.shift
>   this_file.each do |line|
>      # do stuff w/line here
>   end
>   this_file.close
>
> But today's file has an entry w/a pair of double-quotes around it.  So
> now I get:
>
> c:/program files/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/CSV.rb:639:in `get_row':
> CSV::IllegalFormatError (CSV::IllegalFormatError)
> 	from c:/program files/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/CSV.rb:556:in `each'
>
> I've looked through the rubydocs on CSV & am not finding a method for
> telling CSV to expect double-quotes in the file.  Is there such a
> thing?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Roy
>
> P.S. I believe the following illustrates the problem--the "F" street
> entry line does not seem to parse:
>
> require "CSV"        # Lib for working with comma-separated-values
> files
>
> somedata = <<END_OF_FILE
> userid	line1
> 1-2700	1313 Mockingbird Lane
> 2-2706	7100 58th Ave SE
> 4-2718	128 S. "F" Street
> 3-2712	45 600th Ave. NE
> END_OF_FILE
>
> somedata.each_line do |l|
>   x = CSV.parse_line(l, "\t")[0]
>   puts x
> end
>
> puts "Finished!"

i think that, to be legitimate, this file would have to be

> 4-2718	"128 S. ""F"" Street"

so the data is corrupt and may need to be pre-munged.  if you file is always
tab delimited why not

   table = []
   parse = proc{|line| line.split(%r/\t/).map{|c| c.strip}}
   IO::readlines(decrypted_file){|line| table << parse[line]}
   header = table.shift

or do you sometimes have escaped tabs?

cheers.

-a
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