On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 06:42:34PM -0700, Craig Earls wrote:
> My credit union mercifully supports CSV export. I was writing a
> parser for it when I discovered that they actually allow commas inside
> data fields ("Jun. 27, 2011" was in a memo field). That means I have
> to increase the IQ of my parser by a larger amount than I want to
> hassle with right now. Are most of the banks this brain dead, or am I
> just lucky?
It's a fundamental limitation of the CSV format, and one of the many
entertaining things that you have to deal with if you're parsing CSV. Why
are you writing your own CSV parser, though? There are plenty of useful
ready-made ones, including the one used in the already-existent "csv2ledger"
script, which might be a useful starting point for your own work.
- Matt
