Question

I have a comma separated CSV file contains NASDAQ symbols . I use Scanner to read a file

  s = new Scanner(new File("C:\\nasdaq_companylist.csv")).useDelimiter("\\s*,\\s*");    

I’m getting exception on second field .The problem is that this field , like some others fields in file contain commas too, for example “1-800 FLOWERS.COM, Inc.”:

FLWS,"1-800 FLOWERS.COM, Inc.",2.8,76022800,n/a,1999,Consumer Services,Other Specialty Stores,http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/flws    

How to avoid this problem ?
My code is :

List<Stock> theList = new ArrayList<Stock>();
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    //get the title
    String title = s.nextLine();
    System.out.println("title: "+title);

    while (s.hasNext()) 
    {

        String symbol = s.next();
        String name = s.next();
        double lastSale = s.nextDouble();           
        long marketCap = s.nextLong();
        String adr =s.next();
        String ipoYear=s.next();
        String sector=s.next();
        String industry = s.next();
        String summaryQuote = s.next();
        theList.add(newStock(symbol,lastSale));} 

Thanks

Answer 1

Unless this is homework you should not parse CSV yourself. Use one of existing libraries. For example this one: http://commons.apache.org/sandbox/csv/

Or google “java csv parser” and choose another.

But if you wish to implement the logic yourself you should use negative lookahead feature of regular expressions (see http://download.oracle.com/javase/1,5.0/docs/api/java/util/regex/Pattern.html)