Example JavaScript code to parse CSV data

Question

Where could I find some JavaScript code to parse CSV data?

Answer 1

I have an implementation as part of a spreadsheet project.

This code is not yet tested thoroughly, but anyone is welcome to use it.

As some of the answers noted though, your implementation can be much simpler if you actually have DSV or TSV file, as they disallow the use of the record and field separators in the values. CSV, on the other hand, can actually have commas and newlines inside a field, which breaks most regular expression and split-based approaches.

var CSV = {
    parse: function(csv, reviver) {
        reviver = reviver || function(r, c, v) { return v; };
        var chars = csv.split(''), c = 0, cc = chars.length, start, end, table = [], row;
        while (c < cc) {
            table.push(row = []);
            while (c < cc && '\r' !== chars[c] && '\n' !== chars[c]) {
                start = end = c;
                if ('"' === chars[c]){
                    start = end = ++c;
                    while (c < cc) {
                        if ('"' === chars[c]) {
                            if ('"' !== chars[c+1]) {
                                break;
                            }
                            else {
                                chars[++c] = ''; // unescape ""
                            }
                        }
                        end = ++c;
                    }
                    if ('"' === chars[c]) {
                        ++c;
                    }
                    while (c < cc && '\r' !== chars[c] && '\n' !== chars[c] && ',' !== chars[c]) {
                        ++c;
                    }
                } else {
                    while (c < cc && '\r' !== chars[c] && '\n' !== chars[c] && ',' !== chars[c]) {
                        end = ++c;
                    }
                }
                row.push(reviver(table.length-1, row.length, chars.slice(start, end).join('')));
                if (',' === chars[c]) {
                    ++c;
                }
            }
            if ('\r' === chars[c]) {
                ++c;
            }
            if ('\n' === chars[c]) {
                ++c;
            }
        }
        return table;
    },

    stringify: function(table, replacer) {
        replacer = replacer || function(r, c, v) { return v; };
        var csv = '', c, cc, r, rr = table.length, cell;
        for (r = 0; r < rr; ++r) {
            if (r) {
                csv += '\r\n';
            }
            for (c = 0, cc = table[r].length; c < cc; ++c) {
                if (c) {
                    csv += ',';
                }
                cell = replacer(r, c, table[r][c]);
                if (/[,\r\n"]/.test(cell)) {
                    cell = '"' + cell.replace(/"/g, '""') + '"';
                }
                csv += (cell || 0 === cell) ? cell : '';
            }
        }
        return csv;
    }
};