From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2009-11-18T08:35:38+09:00
Subject: Re: using FasterCSV to clean CSV file

On Nov 17, 2009, at 3:46 PM, John Mcleod wrote:

>> FasterCSV does need valid CSV data, yes.  If you have non-valid CSV 
>> data, it will need to be cleaned before FasterCSV can read it.
> 
> The question of validity is confusing.  When a file is saved via 
> MS-Excel isn't it valid?

I expect assume FasterCSV would read the files Excel saves, yes.  (Hope I don't end up regretting that.)

> I understand that there are several different formats (MS-DOS, Windows, 
> MAC) when considering saving a CSV. Which one should be chosen?

I doubt it matters.  The only different should be line endings, which FasterCSV is going to try and guess anyway.

I'm betting your problem is one of encodings.  Do you have some non-ASCII data in the spreadsheet?  If that data is not UTF-8, it could be tripping up FasterCSV's parser.

James Edward Gray II