On Feb 16, 2009, at 1:25 PM, Adam Vande More wrote:
John Almberg wrote:
On Feb 16, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Roland Smith wrote:
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 11:55:50AM -0500, John Almberg wrote:
Can anyone suggest a way to convert a tab-delimited file to csv
using
standard unix utilities? I could whip up a Ruby script to do it,
but
As long as the files don't contain commas themselves,
Right, that's the tricky bit. I could use tr otherwise.
I hate to reinvent the wheel.
I'd whip up that script. There is a shareware tab2csv utility for
windows for $49.95: http://www.download32.com/info-pack-com-
tab2csv-i31827.html
I'm working on it, right now.
I also saw that windows utility, but doesn't help me much.
OTOH, if you have a spreadsheet program like Gnumeric or OpenOffice
installed, you might be able to script those to import from tab-
delimited
and export to CSV. Admittedly that is like using a nuke to kill a
fly.
Actually, the problem arises because I have a client who is
exporting a 'database' file from Excel 2000 (don't ask), to .csv,
and Excel is so stupid that it is not putting quotes around a
field that contains commas. Duh.
Excel seems to export to tab-delimited format without making any
fatal errors, but I need a real .csv file for import.
Thus my need to convert from tab to (real) csv.
-- John
There is this:
http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/arb/psion/
Have no idea if it complies or works as you want.
But if you're dealing with just one so called "database" from Excel
I would go with either checking the settings on the Excel export(in
OO.org you can specify w/ or w/out quotes) as they may have missed
the option.
That was my first hope, but there doesn't seem to be a quote option
in Excel 2000, hard as that is to believe... Unfortunately, they are
a remote client, so I can't look at the 'Save As' options myself, but
I spent a long time on the phone with them, trying to get them to
look for such an 'advanced' option. No luck. It's either not there,
or they are blind.
Or simply get the original file, open it in OO.org and do it from
there as was basically suggested earlier.
That would be easy, but they upload this file frequently, and I need
an automated solution.
I would have thought something like would exist as it's certainly
useful like dos2unix
Me too. Weird.
I've got a prototype working, but now I've discovered that even the
tab delimited file is malformed... the Ruby CSV Library chokes on one
of the data lines. Illegal use of quotes. Bummer...
-- John
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