Escape Characters - Secrets of CSV

We know that a CSV file contains data that consists of a agglomeration of fields separated by a comma, simply the CSV file format is non fully standardized. The basic idea of separating fields with a comma is clear, but that idea gets complicated when the field data may also contain a consequence grapheme such as comma, double quotes, or less commonly newline character or carriage return character.

Simple CSV implementation may prohibit field values that contain a comma or other special characters. To become rid of that effect or to include that kind of issue characters inside a cell, nosotros will need an escape mechanism. In this session, we are going to larn how to employ escaping characters around values that contain result characters.

Now, let'due south leap into the demo and accept the instance from the previous session where we extracted some information from the PDF certificate in CSV format using PDF.co cloud API. In the previous session, we extracted some of the data, such as account number, invoice number, company proper name, full amount, or invoice date, etc in CSV format using PDF.co API. At present, one thing you note is that this company name contained a comma in the name.

Escape Characters

What happens if we put this proper noun in the CSV field? Re-create this visitor name and add that to our CSV file. Hereunder visitor proper name header, past our company name and save this file. Open the CSV file in Excel. Equally you tin run into that because of the comma in the company name, the "Inc" word is shifted to the next cavalcade. Because of this rest of the fields are also shifted to the right side.

How to fix this issue? Information technology's very uncomplicated. Open the CSV file in the text editor. Here what you need to do is in this company name just add together the value inside the double-quotes. Save this file and open information technology in Excel. Now y'all tin can see that all cavalcade values now reside in their corresponding header and hither in the company name, even if the comma inside the value, is still in the correct column.

What happened hither is one time we embed the field within a prepare of table quotes, Excel escaped these values. These double quotes are by and large referred to as text qualifiers. Next, is what if my cell value contains this blazon of value, you see in this clarification column? Here you tin can run across that I have added the percentage in double-quotes.

Sometimes nosotros need to put the double quote to define the string inside the string itself. When we add double quotes, just as we did for this company name, then any piddling double quotes in the actual data like these double quotes will have to exist escaped to avoid it being read every bit i of the enclosing double-quotes.

Escape Characters CSV

To prepare this issue, in that location are two accepted ways of escaping double quotes in the CSV file. 1 is using a pair of sequent double quotes to announce one literal double quote in the data, and the other way is past prefixing a double quote with an escaped character such as Backslash(\).

Add the pair of consecutive double quotes and wrap the entire field in some other double quote. Salve this file and open it in Excel. At present you can see that our field value is displaying a double quote in the description cell.

CSV Escape Characters

The bones rule is if the prison cell value contains a comma, a new line, or double quotes, then the string value should be enclosed in double-quotes. Second is, whatever double-quote character in the value should be escaped with another double quote. By placing double quotes, Excel knows that we are escaping the second double quotes and that means the double quotes are now treated every bit literal.

Other useful articles:

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  • A Real-World Instance of CSV Usage with PDF.co Deject API
  • Change Default CSV Separator Using Windows Culture Settings
  • Escape Characters - Secrets of CSV
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