CSV - How to quote the nth column?

Peter · PostMar 04, 2021#12021-03-04T13:56+00:00

I have a CSV (tab-based or with fixed width ..) like this:

ID         Name        Value A     Value B
1          John Doe    a b         1 2 3
1234568    J. F. Ken               some thing

To copy and paste it to another software, I need to quote some columns, here for example the 2nd:

Code: Select all

ID         'Name'        Value A     Value B
1          'John Doe'    a b         1 2 3
1234568    'J. F. Ken'               some thing

Any (simple) ideas?
I can help myself with other features, but if this "feature" would already exist it would be fine ..

Mofi · PostMar 04, 2021#22021-03-04T15:14+00:00

A Perl regular expression replace all with search string ^[^\t]*?\t\K((?![\t'])[^\t]+) and replace string '\1' could be used on file being a TSV file (tab-separated values file). No field value for second data column and field values in second data column starting with ' are ignored by the Perl regular expression search string.

For a fixed width file with spaces can be used for this example the Perl regular expression search string ^.{11}(?![ '])\K(.+?(?= )) with the replacing string '\1' as above. Two spaces define the end of the string to enclose in single quotes.

It do not really understand why using ' and not " because of ' has no special meaning in a comma-separated values file in comparison to ".

Peter · PostMar 04, 2021#32021-03-04T15:18+00:00

Thanks, Mofi, I will try it.

The reason of using single quotes ' is that finally I paste the code to a SQL Statement. And there double quote " is not accepted.

PostMar 12, 2021#42021-03-12T10:22+00:00

Mofi wrote: ↑
Mar 04, 2021
.... ^[^\t]*?\t\K((?![\t'])[^\t]+) ...

Every time when I think that I understand the first percent of RegEX I have to see something like this - then I need a double coffee and sit down in the corner of my room and cry ...

Thanks, and greetings to Vienna.

PS: For all users who are also filling their coffee cups with tears (while crying): this great page translate the code to human words https://regex101.com/

fleggy · PostMar 12, 2021#52021-03-12T11:06+00:00

Peter, don't give up. Unlike understanding to women, regexes are actually really simple :)

BTW I would use
^[^\t]*+\t\K
instead of
^[^\t]*?\t\K

Long live the possessive quantifiers!