CSV.read Illegal quoting in line x

Question

I am using ruby CSV.read with massive data. From time to time the library encounters poorly formatted lines, for instance:

\"Illegal quoting in line 53657.\"         


        

Answer 1

I had this problem in a line like 123,456,a"b"c

The problem is the CSV parser is expecting ", if they appear, to entirely surround the comma-delimited text.

Solution use a quote character besides " that I was sure would not appear in my data:

CSV.read(filename, :quote_char => "|")