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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/gawk.texi')
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diff --git a/doc/gawk.texi b/doc/gawk.texi index ca99f017..cbc71886 100644 --- a/doc/gawk.texi +++ b/doc/gawk.texi @@ -577,6 +577,7 @@ particular records in a file and perform operations upon them. * Allowing trailing data:: Capturing optional trailing data. * Fields with fixed data:: Field values with fixed-width data. * Splitting By Content:: Defining Fields By Content +* More CSV:: More on CSV files. * Testing field creation:: Checking how @command{gawk} is splitting records. * Multiple Line:: Reading multiline records. @@ -8188,6 +8189,10 @@ four, and @code{$4} has the value @code{"ddd"}. @node Splitting By Content @section Defining Fields by Content +@menu +* More CSV:: More on CSV files. +@end menu + @c O'Reilly doesn't like it as a note the first thing in the section. This @value{SECTION} discusses an advanced feature of @command{gawk}. If you are a novice @command{awk} user, @@ -8227,7 +8232,9 @@ This regular expression describes the contents of each field. In the case of CSV data as presented here, each field is either ``anything that is not a comma,'' or ``a double quote, anything that is not a double quote, and a -closing double quote.'' If written as a regular expression constant +closing double quote.'' (There are more complicated definitions of CSV data, +treated shortly.) +If written as a regular expression constant (@pxref{Regexp}), we would have @code{/([^,]+)|("[^"]+")/}. Writing this as a string requires us to escape the double quotes, leading to: @@ -8283,12 +8290,6 @@ if (substr($i, 1, 1) == "\"") @{ @} @end example -As with @code{FS}, the @code{IGNORECASE} variable (@pxref{User-modified}) -affects field splitting with @code{FPAT}. - -Assigning a value to @code{FPAT} overrides field splitting -with @code{FS} and with @code{FIELDWIDTHS}. - @quotation NOTE Some programs export CSV data that contains embedded newlines between the double quotes. @command{gawk} provides no way to deal with this. @@ -8311,9 +8312,78 @@ FPAT = "([^,]*)|(\"[^\"]+\")" @c (star in latter part of value) to allow quoted strings to be empty. @c Per email from Ed Morton <mortoneccc@comcast.net> +As with @code{FS}, the @code{IGNORECASE} variable (@pxref{User-modified}) +affects field splitting with @code{FPAT}. + +Assigning a value to @code{FPAT} overrides field splitting +with @code{FS} and with @code{FIELDWIDTHS}. + Finally, the @code{patsplit()} function makes the same functionality available for splitting regular strings (@pxref{String Functions}). +@node More CSV +@subsection More on CSV Files + +Manuel Collado notes that in addition to commas, a CSV field can also +contains quotes, that have to be escaped by doubling them. The previously +described regexps fail to accept quoted fields with both commas and +quotes inside. He suggests that the simplest @code{FPAT} expression that +recognizes this kind of fields is @code{/([^,]*)|("([^"]|"")+")/}. He +provides the following imput data test these variants: + +@example +@c file eg/misc/sample.csv +p,"q,r",s +p,"q""r",s +p,"q,""r",s +p,"",s +p,,s +@c endfile +@end example + +@noindent +And here is his test program: + +@example +@c file eg/misc/test-csv.awk +@group +BEGIN @{ + fp[0] = "([^,]+)|(\"[^\"]+\")" + fp[1] = "([^,]*)|(\"[^\"]+\")" + fp[2] = "([^,]*)|(\"([^\"]|\"\")+\")" + FPAT = fp[fpat+0] +@} +@end group + +@group +@{ + print "<" $0 ">" + printf("NF = %s ", NF) + for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) @{ + printf("<%s>", $i) + @} + print "" +@} +@end group +@c endfile +@end example + +When run on the third variant, it produces: + +@example +$ @kbd{gawk -v fpat=2 -f test-csv.awk sample.csv} +@print{} <p,"q,r",s> +@print{} NF = 3 <p><"q,r"><s> +@print{} <p,"q""r",s> +@print{} NF = 3 <p><"q""r"><s> +@print{} <p,"q,""r",s> +@print{} NF = 3 <p><"q,""r"><s> +@print{} <p,"",s> +@print{} NF = 3 <p><""><s> +@print{} <p,,s> +@print{} NF = 3 <p><><s> +@end example + @node Testing field creation @section Checking How @command{gawk} Is Splitting Records |