asked on

Checking the delimiter in a csv file

Hello Experts,
I have some csv files , in some csv files the values are separated by ' ,' and in some other csv files the values are separated by ' ; ' . I need a java code to check whether the csv file is separated by , or ; and if the csv file is separated by ' ; ' then i should be able to change the separator from ' ; ' to ' , ' in the csv file.

Thanks............

CEHJ

Please post some (not too much) sample data

TimYates

I'd do it by checking to see if a ";" exists on every line...

if so, then I'd assume ";" is the delimiter, and you'd have to read the file in line by line and do:

line = line.replaceAll( ";", "," ) ;

then save it back out again to a new file...

TimYates

Of course, you may hit problems with data such as:

1,"tim;yates",2

where a ";" is inside a string var, and "," is the REAL delimiter...

But that can't really be avoided without writing a whole CSV import program...

sunshine737

ASKER

First i would like to check the type of the delimiter whether it is , or ; .

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

TimYates

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Jim Cakalic

Here's a regular expression I found that seems to work. I don't fully like it because it doesn't do the right thing IMO with respect to quotes -- the quotes are returned in the parsed element instead of discarded. But it's close and it is delimiter agnostic for comma and semicolon:

String regexp = "\\s*[,;]\\s*(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))";
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(regexp);
String[] values = pattern.split(line);

Regards,
Jim

sunshine737

ASKER

Hi TimYates ,
Thanks for your help.

TimYates

:-)