sv

For all your separated value needs.

• sv.Stringifier is a Readable stream.
• sv.Parser is a Writable stream.

Install

npm install sv

The optimist dependency is only required for command line use.

API usage

All tabular data must / will have column names on the first row.

Parsing

sprints.csv:

index	name	time
1	chris	1:18
2	daniel	1:17
3	lewis	1:30
4	stephen	1:16
5	larry	1:32

And in node:

var sv = require('sv');
var parser = new sv.Parser();
parser.on('data', function(obj) {
  console.log('sprinter ->', obj);
});

var fs = require('fs');
var sprints = fs.createReadStream('sprints.csv', {encoding: 'utf8'});
sprints.pipe(parser);

Stringifying

var expenses = [
  {name: 'Tip'                },
  {name: 'Lunch', amount: 5.90},
  {name: 'Latte', amount: 3.15},
  {name: 'Paper', amount: 2.10},
  {name: 'Pens' , amount: 4.59},
  {               amount: 9.16}
];

var sv = require('sv');
var stringifier = new sv.Stringifier({peek: 2, missing: 'n/a'});
stringifier.pipe(process.stdout);
expenses.forEach(function(expense) {
  stringifier.write(expense);
});

// if you write set 'peek' to more rows than you have in your data,
// you'll need to call stringifier end so that they get flushed.
stringifier.end();

• N.b.: If you pipe a buffer or (i.e., with a stringifier) into a parser, the parser will not receive any encoding. You must set the encoding on the parser in those cases.

Stringifier features:

1. Infer column names from a list of objects.
2. Convert from objects to csv / tsv plaintext.
   • Also allows writing arrays / strings directly.
3. Write header automatically.

Parser features:

1. Infer delimiter from input.
2. Infer column names from first line of input.
3. Handle universal newlines (\r, \r\n, or \n).

CLI usage

shopt -s globstar
for csv in ~/corpora/testsheets/**/*.csv; do
  echo
  file "$csv"
  echo "Tunneling through multiple 'sv' calls should be transparent."
  cat "$csv" | sv -j | wc -l
  cat "$csv" | sv | sv -j | wc -l
done

TODO

• Decide how to encode a field like {id: 1, name: '"chris'}, when the delimiter is , and quotechar is ".
  • This is weird because it doesn't need quoting, but without, the quotechar marker will trigger an inside state, but there's no end quote.)

Development notes

Characters codes

Line separators:

• \n = 10 (newline)
• \r = 13 (return)

Field separators:

• \t = 9 (tab)
• = 32 (space)
• , = 44 (comma)
• ; = 59 (semicolon)

Field quotations:

• " = 34 (double quote)
• ' = 39 (single quote)
• ` = 96 (backtick)

Escapes:

• \ = 92 (backslash)

Debugging helper:

function logEvents(emitter, prefix, names) {
  names.forEach(function(name) {
    emitter.on(name, function(/*...*/) {
      console.error(prefix + ':' + name, arguments);
    });
  });
}

License

Copyright 2013-2016 Christopher Brown. MIT Licensed.