From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2010-10-28T09:13:33+09:00
Subject: Re: FasterCSV - illegal quoting error - thought it was correct?

On Oct 27, 2010, at 5:58 PM, Gabriel Saravia wrote:

> I have a csv file that includes many rows here's an example snippet
> including the header row:
> 
> First Name, Last Name, Email, Password, Roles
> Sophia, Jackson, sjackson@example.com, abc123, UserRole1
> Olivia, Davis, odavis@example.com, abc123, User Role2
> Alexander, Thomas, athomas@example.com, abc123, "UserRole1, User Role2"

> I thought that this was the correct way to handle this situation
> according to the standard.  I do not want the quotes to be returned as
> part of my string, i just want the string that is the user roles.  One
> set of quotes returns me the error illegal quoting, two sets of quotes
> returns me the same error.  Shouldn't three sets include the quotes as
> part of the string? Well, it still returns me the same error.
> 
> What am I doing wrong? thanks.

The issue is the spaces after your commas.  A quoted field must begin with a quote, not a space.  Here's an example:

>> require "rubygems"
=> true
>> require "faster_csv"
=> true
>> FCSV.parse('a, "b, c"')
FasterCSV::MalformedCSVError: Illegal quoting on line 1.
...
>> FCSV.parse('a,"b, c"')
=> [["a", "b, c"]]

I hope that helps.

James Edward Gray II