C++ CSV line with commas and strings within double quotes

Question

I\'m reading a CSV file in C++ and the row format is as such:

\"Primary, Secondary, Third\", \"Primary\", , \"Secondary\", 18, 4, 0, 0, 0

(notice the empty v

Answer 1

Using std::quoted allows you to read quoted strings from input streams.

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

int main() {
    std::stringstream ss;
    ss << "\"Primary, Secondary, Third\", \"Primary\", , \"Secondary\", 18, 4, 0, 0, 0";

    while (ss >> std::ws) {
        std::string csvElement;

        if (ss.peek() == '"') {
            ss >> std::quoted(csvElement);
            std::string discard;
            std::getline(ss, discard, ',');
        }
        else {
            std::getline(ss, csvElement, ',');
        }

        std::cout << csvElement << "\n";
    }
}

Live Example

The caveat is that quoted strings are only extracted if the first non-whitespace character of a value is a double-quote. Additionally, any characters after the quoted strings will be discarded up until the next comma.