How to read data From *.CSV file using javascript?

Question

My csv data looks like this:

heading1,heading2,heading3,heading4,heading5,value1_1,value2_1,value3_1,value4_1,value5_1,value1_2,value2_2,value3_2,val

Answer 1

Here's a JavaScript function that parses CSV data, accounting for commas found inside quotes.

// Parse a CSV row, accounting for commas inside quotes                   
function parse(row){
  var insideQuote = false,                                             
      entries = [],                                                    
      entry = [];
  row.split('').forEach(function (character) {                         
    if(character === '"') {
      insideQuote = !insideQuote;                                      
    } else {
      if(character == "," && !insideQuote) {                           
        entries.push(entry.join(''));                                  
        entry = [];                                                    
      } else {
        entry.push(character);                                         
      }                                                                
    }                                                                  
  });
  entries.push(entry.join(''));                                        
  return entries;                                                      
}

Example use of the function to parse a CSV file that looks like this:

"foo, the column",bar
2,3
"4, the value",5

into arrays:

// csv could contain the content read from a csv file
var csv = '"foo, the column",bar\n2,3\n"4, the value",5',

    // Split the input into lines
    lines = csv.split('\n'),

    // Extract column names from the first line
    columnNamesLine = lines[0],
    columnNames = parse(columnNamesLine),

    // Extract data from subsequent lines
    dataLines = lines.slice(1),
    data = dataLines.map(parse);

// Prints ["foo, the column","bar"]
console.log(JSON.stringify(columnNames));

// Prints [["2","3"],["4, the value","5"]]
console.log(JSON.stringify(data));

Here's how you can transform the data into objects, like D3's csv parser (which is a solid third party solution):

var dataObjects = data.map(function (arr) {
  var dataObject = {};
  columnNames.forEach(function(columnName, i){
    dataObject[columnName] = arr[i];
  });
  return dataObject;
});

// Prints [{"foo":"2","bar":"3"},{"foo":"4","bar":"5"}]
console.log(JSON.stringify(dataObjects));

Here's a working fiddle of this code.

Enjoy! --Curran