CSV Sniffer

CSV Sniffer is intended to provide utilities that will allow a user heuristically detect the delimiter character in use, whether the values in the CSV file are quote enclosed, whether the file contains a header, and more. The library is intended to detect information to be used as configuration inputs for CSV parsers. For delimiter detection the following delimiters are currently supported [",", "\t", "|", ";"]

To ensure high performance and a low memory footprint, the library uses as little information as needed to make accurate decisions. Contributors are welcome to improve the algorithms in use.

Installation

$ gem install csv_sniffer

Usage

Given a some_data.csv file:

Name;Phone
John Doe ;555-481-2345
Jane C. Doe;555-123-4567

Detection usage is as follows:

require "csv_sniffer"

delim = CsvSniffer.detect_delimiter("/path/to/some_data.csv") #=> ";"
is_quote_enclosed = CsvSniffer.is_quote_enclosed?("/path/to/some_data.csv") #=> False

See test_csv_sniffer.rb for more examples.

Tests

$ ruby test.rb

To Do

Header detection

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.