Ruby gem that uses C bindings to read CSV files superfast. I'm totally serial!
require 'rubygems'
require 'excelsior'
rows = []
Excelsior::Reader.rows(File.open('a_csv_file.csv', 'rb')) do |row|
rows << row
end
require 'rubygems'
require 'excelsior'
rows = []
Excelsior::Reader.rows("first,second,third\n1,2,3") do |row|
rows << row
end