csv-from-html

This library allows you to generate and download csv files containing the text inside HTML elements (technically, the innerText property of the elements). For example, starting from

<div class="cfh-table">
  <div class="cfh-row">
    <div class="cfh-cell">Donec condimentum</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">ligula sed maximus sagittis</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">Maecenas non auctor libero</div>
  </div>
  <div class="cfh-row">
    <div class="cfh-cell">Aliquam pellentesque leo et faucibus</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">Pellentesque varius</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">risus non ornare dapibus</div>
  </div>
  <div class="cfh-row">
    <div class="cfh-cell">Nullam tincidunt metus diam</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">et luctus ante vulputate vitae</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">Pellentesque commodo nisi metus</div>
  </div>
  <div class="cfh-row">
    <div class="cfh-cell">quis bibendum purus</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">finibus molestie</div>
    <div class="cfh-cell">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</div>
  </div>
</div>

it will produce a csv file like this:

Given an HTML structure like the one shown above, which is organized as a table without being (necessarily) an HTML <table>, once you have defined CSS selectors to identify an external wrapper (in the example, .cfh-table) the "rows" (.cfh-row) and "cells" within them (.cfh-cell), you will be able to generate a csv file containing its innerText organized exactly as it is in the HTML structure. Every "row" element constitute a row in the csv, and every "cell" element constitute a cell inside a row.

Installation

The installation command is

npm install csv-from-html

Import

Since this package is intended to run in the browser, you have to include it using a <script> tag in your html. You have three options to do that.

A) Using a CDN ( the easiest way)

Just include this tag in your html:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/csv-from-html@3.0.3/dist/main.umd.min.js"></script>

B) Using a module boundler ( the recommended way)

I'll give you an example of doing this with webpack.

1. Create a JS file in your project, for example './src/index.js', where you import the CsvFromHtml class and write the code to generate your csv file:

import CsvFromHtml from 'csv-from-html'
    
const csv = new CsvFromHtml({
  // This is an example configuration
  tableSelector: '.cfh-flex',
  triggerSelector: '#cfh-trigger-flex',
  rowSelector: '.cfh-row',
  cellSelector: '.cfh-col',
  delimiter: ';'
})

2. Install webpack with

npm install -g webpack webpack-cli

3. Create the configuration file webpack.config.js at the root of your project and write inside it:

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
  mode: 'development',
  entry: './src/index.js', // the path of the JS file you created above
  output: {
    filename: 'my-csv-from-html.js', // the file you will include with script tag
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist') // the directory location of the file
  }
};

Remember that, because of webpack's behavior, the scope of CsvFromHtml will be exclusively the boundled file. Therefore, you will have to write the entire code in the entry point (in this case, ./src/index.js').

4. Run

webpack

This command will create the source file at './dist/my-csv-from-html.js'

5. Include this tag in your html

<script src="./dist/my-csv-from-html.js"></script>

C) Using the package entry point as your script src attribute ( don't use it in production)

This method falls under bad practices. It should be reserved for testing purposes and is strongly discouraged in production environments.
Just include this tag in your html:

<script src="./node_modules/csv-from-html/dist/main.umd.min.js"></script>

Usage

1. 🏗️ Create the instance
   Create an object CsvFromHtml and pass the following required arguments to the constructor:

   tableSelector: a CSS selector for "table" element (the wrapper)
   rowSelector: a CSS selector for "row" elements
   cellSelector: a CSS selector for "cell" elements (the descendants of row elements)

   You can also pass to it the following non-required arguments:

   triggerSelector: a CSS selector for the download trigger
   fileName: the name of the file without extension (default is 'myFile')
   delimiter: the column delimiter of the csv file (default is ;)
   qualifier: the column qualifier of the csv file. Only " and ' are valid entries (default is ")
   filter: a callback function(innerText, rowIndex, colIndex, cell) that runs for each cell, which returns the value that will be saved in the csv file for the current cell. The following is a description of its parameters:

   • innerText: the innerText of the current cell (required)
   • rowIndex: the index (starting from 0) of the current row (optional)
   • colIndex: the index (starting from 0) of the current column (optional)
   • cell: the cell element (optional)

2. 📁 Download the file
   You have two options to do that.
   2a) If you provided the optional parameter triggerSelector to the constructor, clicking on any element that matches the selector will start the download. Even if the selector is unique, you can have multiple elements that match it, and thus more than one trigger.
   2b) Using the download method provided by the CsvFromHtml object.

💡 When you create the CsvFromHtml object, neither the "table" element nor the "row" elements nor the "cell" elements nor the trigger element need to exist in the DOM. Using event delegation, it will capture the click event on the first element in the DOM Tree that currently matches the triggerSelector and create the csv file using the elements that currently matches the tableSelector, the rowSelector and cellSelector. This behavior is useful, for example, when the table content is dynamic and may change in response to actions made by the user.

Example

const cfh = new CsvFromHtml({
      tableSelector: '.cfh-table',
      triggerSelector: '#cfh-trigger', // When the user clicks on the element with id "cfh-trigger", the download will start
      rowSelector: '.cfh-row',
      cellSelector: '.cfh-cell',
      delimiter: ';',
      fileName: 'example-download',
      filter : function(t, i, j, c) {
          let textToSave = t
          if(i==0) {
            // Prepend some text to all cells from first row
            textToSave = 'Column ' + textToSave
          }
          if(c.classList.contains('special')) {
            // Wrap text from cells with class 'special' inside '***'
            textToSave = '***' + textToSave + '***'
          }
          return textToSave
      }
    })
document.querySelector("#cfh-trigger-2").addEventListener("click", function() {
  cfh.download() // The download will also start when the user clicks on the element with id "cfh-trigger-2"
})