Question

I have a simple CSV (imported using JQuery’s $.ajax from the /data/league.csv on the same site) with three lines in this exact format:

"Kimberlin Library","Queen's Building","Innovation Centre","etc etc"
8,2,0,-2
1,0,-1,0

which I’d like to get into this format (to use building and percent as data for the x-y axes in Highcharts, and also to populate a list with all three):

var leaguetable = {
    building: ["Kimberlin Library","Queen's Building","Innovation Centre","etc etc"],
    percent: [8,2,0,-2],
    change: [1,0,-1,0]
};

embarrassingly trivial, but I keep drawing a blank, despite trying other people’s methods (including split(/\r\n|\n|r/), searching for /^(.*)$/m), and this question), so prepared to start from scratch. I need something as simple as possible, either JQuery or pure Javascript. For a similar problem I ended up converting the file to JSON, but I’d like to avoid that if possible.

Answer 1

Try this. It will handle simple CSV, and single- or double-quoted CSV, all via the regex pattern in the code below. You’ll have to adjust the end of processCSV() to do what you want, since I’m just returning the object into thin air.

$(document).ready(function() {
    $.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        url: "my_csv.txt",
        dataType: "text",
        success: function(data) {processCSV(data);}
     });
 });

function processCSV(allLines) {
    var allLinesArray = allLines.split(/\r\n|\n/);
    var leaguetable = { 'building': [], 'percent': [], 'change': [] };
    var pattern = /([^,'"]*"[^"]*"[^,'"]*)|([^,'"]*'[^']*'[^,'"]*)|([^,"']*)/ig;
    var fieldValues;

    for (var i=0; i<allLinesArray.length; i++) {
        fieldValues = allLinesArray[i].match(pattern);
        if (fieldValues) {
            for (var j=0; j<fieldValues.length; j++) {
                // if begins with single- or double-quote, strip specified quotes
                if (fieldValues[j].charAt(0) === '"' || fieldValues[j].charAt(0) === "'") {
                    fieldValues[j] = fieldValues[j].replace(fieldValues[j].substr(0,1), "");
                }
            }
            // I'll trust your CSV to have the right number of fields, but...
            // you may want to build some validation in before doing the next 3 lines
            leaguetable.building.push(fieldValues[1]);
            leaguetable.percent.push(fieldValues[2]);
            leaguetable.change.push(fieldValues[3]);
        }
    }
    return leaguetable;
}