Shell Programming and Scripting

DGPickett,

The code does not handle quoted commas.

It works for what was specified in the original post.

We have to remember that the solutions here are designed to solve
the original post description and stated rules.

An experienced IT professional can always propose “what-if” cases
that may cause a code to break - consider the following situations:

Input:

Code:

field1, field2, “last1, first1”
field1, field2, “last2, first2”
fieldA, fieldB, last1
fieldA, fieldB, first1
fieldA, fieldB, last2
fieldA, fieldB, first2

According to the post rules, the output would be:

Code:

field1, field2, “last1, first1, last2, first2”
fieldA, fieldB, “last1, first1, last2, first2”

There could be quoted comma in the first two fields:

Code:

"Last1, First1", "Last2, First2", Value

Also, how would quotation inside of quoted commas would work:

Input:

Code:

field1, field2, “His Answer: \“Yes, I do.\””

or:

Code:

field1, field2, “His Answer: ““Yes, I do.”””

As you can see, there are several other instances of “what-ifs” where the solution could become
very complex and thus not practical for the purpose of solving the original post where the member
does not have such cases.

Such as someone editing a code solution in Microsoft Word, adding surplus linebreaks and converting ordinary quotes into special “ ” quotes.

I am glad to see that some people really pay attention to what is written.

Cheers.

Well, they are explicit when one says CSV, but often neglected, so I did not drag anything new in. I am into robust solutions, but there may be no commas in the data here . . . yet.

There are JDBC and ODBC tools that can handle CSV files like database tables: filtering, combining and sorting them as you please to produce new CSV files. I used to correspond with a nice Chinese guy, Dawei, at HXTT, adding features to their flat file database tool. They have trial versions, and they work fine on the command line with xigole jisql. I also used JStels.

HXTT Text JDBC Drivers and CSV JDBC Drivers

Jisql - a Java based interactive SQL application

StelsCSV JDBC CSV Driver Documentation