https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160355
Bug ID: 160355
Summary: Detect separator for CSV files
Product: LibreOffice
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Severity: normal
Priority: medium
Component: LibreOffice
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
CC: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]
A CSV (comma-separated values) file is (in theory) a file that stores tabular
data in plain text using commas to separate values and newlines to separate
records. There is a standard (RFC 4180) for CSV files format. However, there is
a lack of adherence to this standard with multiple formats used instead. The
most common part of the format that differs is the separator. Instead of comma,
multiple other separators are used: semicolon, pipe, tab, space, ...
Not knowing the structure of a CSV file makes difficult importing/converting it
in LibreOffice.
1. In case of importing a CSV file an Import dialog is shown to the user where
it can provide the right filter options for the format of the data. A default
set of values for these options is provided when the dialog loads. This is a
reasonable way of handling the issue.
2. Also, in case of conversions (performed without UI) Libreoffice provides the
"infilter" parameter which is equivalent to the Import dialog from the above
case. If the parameter is missing then some default values are used.
3. Although the above cases are handled reasonably, there is a third case which
needs a better handling: automatic conversions where the format of the input
file is not fixed, it can change from one file to another. In this case either
a provided set of options through the "infilter" parameter is used or the
default one. However, this will generate wrong conversions if the format
differs from one file to another. A better approach is needed.
Taking into account the above considerations I consider that some kind of
"detection/guess" mechanism can be implement so that it will cover
automatically a greater number of formats. And I'm talking especially about the
separator.
I already provided a patch for this here:
https://gerrit.libreoffice.org/c/core/+/164936 . It first detects the character
set and then the separator based on the detected character set. Also, it allows
a small room for not well-formatted files. This detection applies to
conversions as well as to the Import dialog as an initial suggestion.
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