From: Leslie Viljoen <leslieviljoen@...>
Date: 2010-10-25T23:50:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Utilizing data from a csv file

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Greg Barozzi <greg5000@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Paul Roche wrote in post #956704:
>> Hi I basically want to create a function that takes in data that has
>> been taken in from a csv file.
>>
>
> Hi Paul,
>
> It looks like you have a handle on your data structure but need help
> parsing the data from your csv file. I wrote a short program do handle
> data from csv files a little while back. Maybe looking it over will help
> you with your own project.
>
> Code:
>
> filename = 'data.csv'
> grades = []
> heading = []
> values = []
> i = 0
>
>
> file = File.new(filename, 'r')
>
> file.each_line("\n") do |row|
>  columns = row.split(",")


Split is simple, but it doesn't deal with CSV rows which have strings
with commas in them. Like this:
apple, pear, "banana, salad", apricot

The FasterCSV gem is an excellent way to read and write CSV files and
it deals with these sorts of problems: http://fastercsv.rubyforge.org