csvToText Repository

[Peter TB Brett]

On 13/06/2016 12:45, Alex Tweedly wrote:
> "into an array" .... in what  way ?    presumably a numerically indexed
> array.
>
> Perhaps a more general feature requests would be to extend the 'split'
> command, so that it would parse by Primary and Secondary delimiters into
> numerically indexed arrays ?  (using a new optional keyword "completely"
> ... :-)
>
> e.g. split completely myVar by CR and TAB

Hi Alex,

I don't think an enhancement to the split command would be adequate for 
correct parsing of a CSV file.

For example, this is a single line of a valid CSV file, according to 
some producers:

 > a,"b,c",d e

The elements of the line are: "a", "b,c", "d" and "e".  Obviously, this 
is best handled by parsing into an array.

Coping with the many subtle variants of CSV or TSV files is beyond what 
can be realistically built into the engine, and having a library 
specifically dedicated to good CSV file format support seems to me to be 
the best way to deal with this.

                                    Peter

-- 
Dr Peter Brett <peter.brett at livecode.com>
LiveCode Technical Project Manager

LiveCode 2016 Conference: https://livecode.com/edinburgh-2016/