Save As CSV problem

[ScotP]

When I save a spreadsheet as CSV, and some of the fields at the end of
the row are empty (ie row 1 has 10 fields, and subsequent rows have <10
fields), some rows have consecutive comma's at the end of the row for the
empty fields, and some do not. Anyone see/hear of this behavior? I'm using
Excel 2002 SP3.

To reproduce the problem, try entering 1 - 5 in cells A1 - E1, then
enter 1 & 2 in columns A & B for the next 20 rows. Save as CSV, and open in
notepad, rows 2 - 16 have three comma's at the end, & rows starting at 17 do
not. The problem always starts at row 17 for me.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Saved from a previous post:

This might describe the problem of too many commas in CSV files:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=77295
Column Delimiters Missing in Spreadsheet Saved as Text

(It actually describes missing delimiter, but if some are "missing", maybe the
ones appearing are "extra".)

(But a lot of programs (excel included) don't care about those extra columns.
Maybe you don't have to care, either???)

Maybe you could write your own exporting program that would behave exactly the
way you want:

Here are three sites that you could steal some code from:

Earl Kiosterud's Text Write program:
www.smokeylake.com/excel
(or directly: http://www.smokeylake.com/excel/text_write_program.htm)

Chip Pearson's:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/imptext.htm

J.E. McGimpsey's:
http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/textfiles.html

(or maybe you could build your own formula and copy|paste into Notepad.)

In G1:
=a1
In G2:
=a2&","&b2&","&c2&","&d2&","&e2&","&f2
then drag down.

You may need to insert additional quotes or formatting:

=a2&","&text(b2,"mm/dd/yyyy")&....

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

The Text Write program does not normally write field delimiters (normally
commas) past the last field that contains something, in a given record. For
that, use the "Write rectangular" option, first selecting the range to be
written to. From what I've heard, Excel's CSV file type sometimes does, and
sometimes doesn't.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I knew you built a lot of options into that workbook!

 

[ScotP]

I didn't explain the problem correctly, I want (need) the comma's. The
program I wrote is to load data from a CSV into a DB. The first thing I do
is check the number of fields in the record, if there are too few, or too
many, I skip the record. Our client said they were getting a lot of skipped
records, and the skipped records were similar to records that weren't being
skipped. I asked for the file they were using & found this problem. The
article you cited does explain the behavior, thanx.. I will suggest to my
boss that he instructs the clients to put a space in the last field of any
record that doesn't have data (all fields are trimmed before processing).

Thanx Again,
Scot P

 

[Dave Peterson]

I read that KB article again and it sure sounds like it explains the problem to
me. In fact, it recommends the same technique as you do.

 

[ScotP]

Dave:
Your message seems to infer that I don't think that the article explains
the problem, I DO think that it does explain exactly what was happening.
Earls macro looks like it will fix more than just the delimiter problem
(they also had some carriage returns in fields), but I don't know if it's
practical to ask the client to use a third party macro to load their data.
I will discuss it with the powers that be, and if the client is receptive
(I'm told that they are "Excel Wizards" all evidence to the contrary), we
will send it to them.

In any event, I will keep all the links you sent so I can steal
code/tips at a later date as necessary.


Many thanx to you & the link contributers,
Scot P

 

[Dave Peterson]

Sorry--I misread your response and added a "not" as in "does not explain" (it's
hell getting old!).

Maybe you could just accept their files asis, but then you could convert it to
what you want. Your customers won't have to do anything.

(I don't know what program needs these extra commas, but if it's an in-house
program, maybe you could have it modified??)

Dave:
Your message seems to infer that I don't think that the article explains
the problem, I DO think that it does explain exactly what was happening.
Earls macro looks like it will fix more than just the delimiter problem
(they also had some carriage returns in fields), but I don't know if it's
practical to ask the client to use a third party macro to load their data.
I will discuss it with the powers that be, and if the client is receptive
(I'm told that they are "Excel Wizards" all evidence to the contrary), we
will send it to them.

In any event, I will keep all the links you sent so I can steal
code/tips at a later date as necessary.

Many thanx to you & the link contributers,
Scot P

 

[Dave Peterson]

In fact, maybe you could take some of that code and build an automatic routine
that opens each of the .csv files saves them the way you want (just loop through
all those .csv files in a particular folder and process them to make them
nicer).

Dave:
Your message seems to infer that I don't think that the article explains
the problem, I DO think that it does explain exactly what was happening.
Earls macro looks like it will fix more than just the delimiter problem
(they also had some carriage returns in fields), but I don't know if it's
practical to ask the client to use a third party macro to load their data.
I will discuss it with the powers that be, and if the client is receptive
(I'm told that they are "Excel Wizards" all evidence to the contrary), we
will send it to them.

In any event, I will keep all the links you sent so I can steal
code/tips at a later date as necessary.

Many thanx to you & the link contributers,
Scot P

 

[ScotP]

I don't get the files at all (unless there's a problem, & I request
them). They are uploaded by the client through an asp page. The space
solution should be ok for now.

ScotP