From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2006-03-29T01:04:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Chaning the quote-character in csv parsing

On Mar 28, 2006, at 8:03 AM, Jens Auer wrote:

> I have a bunch of files containing lines as comma-seperated values.  
> Unfortunately, the character used for quoting is a single quote (')  
> and not the double quote ("). How can I tell the csv library (or  
> fastercsv or any other csv-parsing library) which character is used  
> for quoting?

I'm not aware of a way to change it for either library, sadly.  If  
your data is simple, you might get away with manipulating it into shape:

 >> require "csv"
=> true
 >> line = "one,'quoted','quoted, but with comma'"
=> "one,'quoted','quoted, but with comma'"
 >> CSV.parse_line(line.tr("'", '"'))
=> ["one", "quoted", "quoted, but with comma"]

Unfortunately, on of the examples you showed is more complicated than  
that:

 >> line = 'some words "some quoted text" some more words'
=> "some words \"some quoted text\" some more words"
 >> CSV.parse_line('"' + line.gsub('"', '""').tr("'", '"') + '"')
=> ["some words \"some quoted text\" some more words"]

Those transforms need to be done on a field by field basis though, to  
correctly convert data like that.

Hope that helps.

James Edward Gray II