Need for quoted strings in all cases

[JoaCHIP]

I'm writing an exporter for a company who wants .csv files with FieldSeparator = "|" (pipe character) and Quote = "^". They want the quote character around all fields in all cases, even empty strings. Only null values should not have ^^ on each side. I realize this is a slightly odd format to ask for, but I think it still falls within the concept of a .csv file.

But because of the logic in the SeparatedValueRecordWriter.cs / needsEscaped( ) call, the Quote character is only inserted for non-empty strings in certain cases, so I guess a new switch would be needed. Something like AlwaysQuoteStrings = true

I wonder if FlatFiles could be / should be expanded to be able to do this? (I would have tried the change myself, but for some odd reason this solution causes VS 2017 to crash on load every time i try.)

[jehugaleahsa]

There are actually two changes needed for this: always quoting and distinguishing between null and empty strings.

Changing the code to always quote was pretty easy. I am still thinking about how to handle the second case. Suppose someone uses the default quoting, so they aren't "always quoting". In that case, null and an empty string are the same thing. In that sense, distinguishing between null and empty strings is really specific to "always quoting". It's like a configuration on top of a configuration, if you follow me.

Will let you know what I come up with.

On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 8:41 AM, JoaCHIP notifications@github.com wrote:

I'm writing an exporter for a company who wants .csv files with FieldSeparator = "|" (pipe character) and Quote = "^". They want the quote character around all fields in all cases, even empty strings. Only null values should not have ^^ on each side. I realize this is a slightly odd format to ask for, but I think it still falls within the concept of a .csv file.

But because of the logic in the SeparatedValueRecordWriter.cs / needsEscaped( ) call, the Quote character is only inserted for non-empty strings in certain cases, so I guess a new switch would be needed. Something like AlwaysQuoteStrings = true

I wonder if FlatFiles could be / should be expanded to be able to do this? (I would have tried the change myself, but for some odd reason this solution causes VS 2017 to crash on load every time i try.)

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[JoaCHIP]

Good point. And thanks.

[cbone]

I have dug supper deeply into the code, but could you do something like this? Forgive me if I'm not accounting for something that would be revealed if I dug in a bit more.

private bool needsEscaped(string value, bool escapeEmptyStrings) { // Don't escape null or empty strings. if(value == null) return false; if(value == String.Empty) { return escapeEmptyStrings; } ..... ..... }

Something along those lines... Does this make sense and/or solve the issue?

[jehugaleahsa]

Yeah, that's where I'm looking to make the change. Good to know my code's not horribly cryptic. :-)

On Sep 18, 2017 3:36 PM, "Carl Bono" notifications@github.com wrote:

I have dug supper deeply into the code, but could you do something like this? Forgive me if I'm not accounting for something that would be revealed if I dug in a bit more.

private bool needsEscaped(string value, bool escapeEmptyStrings) { // Don't escape null or empty strings. if(value == null) return false; if(value == String.Empty) { return escapeEmptyStrings; } ..... ..... }

Something along those lines... Does this make sense and/or solve the issue?

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[cbone]

The code is very good. Thanks for sharing it :+1:

Ha, and I meant I "HAVEN'T dug super deeply into the code.

[jehugaleahsa]

I ended up needing to upgrade to .NET Core 2.0, which shouldn't have any impact on you. Took way longer than I expected... my unit tests refused to be found in VS2017. After overthinking it for probably way too long I decided to simply discern between null and space as you had suggested in your example code above. You should find the new QuoteBehavior property on the SeparatedValueOptions class. You can set it to AlwaysQuote and you should see the behavior you're after. Let me know otherwise.