ya-csv

Event based CSV parser and writer for Node.js suitable for processing large CSV streams.

• Designed for high performance and ease of use.
• RFC 4180 compliance with optional extensions.
• Zero dependencies.

Example

// A simple echo program:
var csv = require('ya-csv');
 
var reader = csv.createCsvStreamReader(process.openStdin());
var writer = csv.createCsvStreamWriter(process.stdout);
 
reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
    writer.writeRecord(data);
});
 
reader.addListener('error', function(e) {
    console.error('Oops!');
});

Installation

npm install ya-csv

Current version requires at least Node.js v0.2.3 and it's tested with Node.js v0.4.12, 0.6.11, 0.7.5 and v0.10.24. Hope it works with the other versions in between too.

Features

• event based, suitable for processing big CSV streams
• configurable separator, quote and escape characters (comma, double-quote and double-quote by default)
• ignores lines starting with configurable comment character (off by default)
• supports memory-only streaming

More examples

Echo first column of the data.csv file:

// equivalent of csv.createCsvFileReader('data.csv') 
var reader = csv.createCsvFileReader('data.csv', {
    'separator': ',',
    'quote': '"',
    'escape': '"',       
    'comment': '',
});
var writer = new csv.CsvWriter(process.stdout);
reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
    writer.writeRecord([ data[0] ]);
});

Return data in objects rather than arrays: either by grabbing the column names from the header row (first row is not passed to the data listener):

var reader = csv.createCsvFileReader('data.csv', { columnsFromHeader: true });
reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
    // supposing there are so named columns in the source file
    sys.puts(data.col1 + " ... " + data.col2);
});

... or by providing column names from the client code (first row is passed to the data listener in this case):

var reader = csv.createCsvFileReader('data.csv');
reader.setColumnNames([ 'col1', 'col2' ]);
reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
    sys.puts(data.col1 + " ... " + data.col2);
});

Note reader.setColumnNames() resets the column names so next invocation of the data listener will again receive the data in an array rather than an object.

Convert the /etc/passwd file to comma separated format, drop commented lines and dump the results to the standard output:

var reader = csv.createCsvFileReader('/etc/passwd', {
    'separator': ':',
    'quote': '"',
    'escape': '"',
    'comment': '#',
});
var writer = new csv.CsvWriter(process.stdout);
reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
    writer.writeRecord(data);
});

Parsing an upload as the data comes in, using node-formidable:

upload_form.onPart = function(part) {
    if (!part.filename) { upload_form.handlePart(part); return }
 
    var reader = csv.createCsvFileReader({'comment': '#'});
    reader.addListener('data', function(data) {
        saveRecord(data);
    });
 
    part.on('data', function(buffer) {
        // Pipe incoming data into the reader.
        reader.parse(buffer);
    });
    part.on('end', function() {
        reader.end()
    })
}

CsvReader Options

Note: the defaults are based on the values from RFC 4180 - https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180

• separator - field separator (delimiter), default: ',' (comma)
• quote - the character used to enclose fields with white space characters, escaping etc., default: '"' (double quote)
• escape - character used to escape the quote inside a field, default: '"' (double quote). If you are changing quotechar you may want to change the escape to the same value
• comment - parser will ignore this character and all following characters on the same line the line, default: none
• columnNames - an array of column names, if used, the rows sent to the data listener are represented as hashes instead of arrays, default: none
• columnsFromHeader - boolean value indicating whether the first row should be interpreted as a list of header names. If used, the rows sent to the data listener are represented as hashes instead of arrays, default: false
• nestedQuotes - boolean value indicating whether the parser should try to process a file with unescaped quote characters inside fields, default: false
• flags - a string with flags to be passed through to createRead/WriteStream (only supported via createCsvFileReader and createCsvFileWriter methods), default: none

CSvWriter Options

• separator - field separator (delimiter), default: ',' (comma)
• quote - the character used to enclose fields with white space characters, escaping etc., default: '"' (double quote)
• escape - character used to escape the quote inside a field, default: '"' (double quote). If you are changing quotechar you may want to change the escape to the same value
• escapeFormulas - boolean value indicating whether the parser should escape '=', '+' and '-' with an apostrophe to prevent some programs from treating the content as an executable formula, default: false