SwiftCsv Parser Support for DoubleQuotes - ios

Question

Im using Swiftcsv library to parse CSV file.
How to ignore Comma delimiter for strings within DoubleQuotes e.g "Abcd, went to Apple" ?
here the parser takes Abcd as one Value and went to Apple as another value.
Code :
func parseRows(fromLines lines: [String]) -> [Dictionary<String, String>] {
var rows: [Dictionary<String, String>] = []
for (lineNumber, line) in enumerate(lines) {
if lineNumber == 0 {
continue
}
var row = Dictionary<String, String>()
let values = line.componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet(self.delimiter)
for (index, header) in enumerate(self.headers) {
let value = values[index]
row[header] = value
}
rows.append(row)
}
return rows
}
How can i change line.componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet(self.delimiter) to ignore commas within Doublequotes?

Answer 1

Use this instead https://github.com/Daniel1of1/CSwiftV
Had the same issue. It took me an hour or so to figure out the problem is that SwiftCSV doesn't, erm, work.
Text in CSV files is inside quotes so commas and newlines in a CSV don't screw up the parser. I looked at the SwiftCSV source and there is no support for that - meaning that any commas or newlines screw up the parsing.
You could patch up SwiftCSV, or just go with CSwiftV I linked above.

Answer 2

I don't know if you are still looking for a solution, but I just came up with a quick way to do this as it is a problem that just came up for me.
The code isn't full proof because I am only using it for a side project so if you want to handle more cases you probably will need to make some changes.
func parseRows(fromLines lines: [String]) -> [Dictionary<String, String>] {
var rows: [Dictionary<String, String>] = []
for (lineNumber, line) in enumerate(lines) {
if lineNumber == 0 {
continue
}
var row = Dictionary<String, String>()
// escape commas in the string when it is surrounded by quotes
let convertedLine = NSString(string: line) // have to convert string to NSString because string does not have all NSString API
var escapedLine = line
var searchRange = NSMakeRange(1,convertedLine.length)
var foundRange:NSRange
if NSString(string: line).containsString("\"")
{
while (searchRange.location < convertedLine.length) {
searchRange.length = convertedLine.length-searchRange.location
foundRange = convertedLine.rangeOfString("\"", options: nil, range: searchRange)
if (foundRange.location != NSNotFound) {
// found a quotation mark
searchRange.location = foundRange.location+foundRange.length
let movieTitle = convertedLine.substringToIndex(foundRange.location)
escapedLine = convertedLine.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString(",", withString: "&c", options: nil, range: NSMakeRange(0,foundRange.location))
} else {
// no more substring to find
break
}
}
}
var values = escapedLine.componentsSeparatedByCharactersInSet(self.delimiter)
for (index, header) in enumerate(self.headers) {
var value = values[index]
//reinsert commas if they were escaped and get rid of quotation marks
value = value.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("\"", withString: "")
value = value.stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString("&c", withString: ",")
row[header] = value
}
rows.append(row)
}
return rows
}