1CSV(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation CSV(1)
2
6 csv - process CSV files from the command line
7
9 # On the command line:
10 csv 1 2 -1 < report.csv
12 # Reads the first two fields, as well as the last one, from "report.csv".
14 # Data is cleaned up and emitted as CSV.
15 csv --fields Revenue,Q1,Q2 < report.csv # or "-f" for short
17 # First line of the input (from file "report.csv") is considered as
19 # header line; the fields are emitted in the order "Revenue", "Q1",
20 # and "Q2". Data is cleaned up and emitted as CSV.
21 csv --input report.csv --to_tsv
23 # Converts the whole report to TSV (tab-separated values).
25
27 CSV (comma-separated value) files are the lowest common denominator of
28 structured data interchange formats. For such a humble file format, it
29 is pretty difficult to get right: embedded quote marks and linebreaks,
30 slipshod delimiters, and no One True Validity Test make CSV data found
31 in the wild hard to parse correctly. Text::CSV_XS provides flexible and
32 performant access to CSV files from Perl, but is cumbersome to use in
33 one-liners and the command line.
34 csv is intended to make commandline processing of CSV files as easy as
36 plain text is meant to be on Unix. Internally, it holds two Text::CSV
37 objects (for input and for output), which have reasonable defaults but
38 which you can reconfigure to suit your needs. Then you can extract just
39 the fields you want, change the delimiter, clean up the data etc.
40 In the simplest usage, csv filters stdio and takes a list of integers.
42 These are 1-based column numbers to select from the input CSV stream.
43 Negative numbers are counted from the line end. Without any column
44 list, csv selects all columns (this is still useful to normalize
45 quoting style etc.).
46 Command line options
48 The following options are passed to Text::CSV. When preceded by the
49 prefix "output_", the destination is affected. Otherwise these options
50 affect both input and output.
51 --quote_char
53 --escape_char
54 --sep_char
55 --eol
56 --always_quote
57 --binary
58 --keep_meta_info
59 --allow_loose_quotes
60 --allow_loose_escapes
61 --allow_whitespace
62 --verbatim
63 NOTE: binary is set to 1 by default in csv. The other options have
65 their Text::CSV defaults.
66 The following additional options are available:
68 --input, -i
70 --output, -o
71 Filenames for input and output. "-" means stdio. Useful to trigger
72 TSV mode ("--from_tsv" and "--to_tsv").
73 --columns, -c
75 Column numbers may be specified using this option.
76 --fields, -f
78 When this option is specified, the first line of the input file is
79 considered as a header line. This option takes a comma-separated
80 list of column-names from the first line.
81 For convenience, this option also accepts a comma-separated list of
83 column numbers as well. Multiple --fields options are allowed, and
84 both column names and numbers can be mixed together.
85 --from_tsv, --from-tsv
87 --to_tsv, --to-tsv
88 Use tabs instead of commas as the delimiter. When csv has the input
89 or output filenames available, this is inferred when they end with
90 ".tsv". To disable this dwimmery, you may say "--to_tsv=0" and
91 "--from_tsv=0".
92
94 Text::CSV, Text::CSV_XS
95
97 Gaal Yahas "<gaal@forum2.org>"
98
100 nothingmuch, gphat, t0m, themoniker, Prakash Kailasa, tsibley, srezic,
101 and ether.
102
104 Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-app-csv at
105 rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at
106 <http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=App-CSV>. I will be
107 notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your
108 bug as I make changes.
109 You're also invited to work on a patch. The source repo is at
111 <git://github.com/gaal/app-csv.git>
113 <http://github.com/gaal/app-csv/tree/master>
115
117 Copyright 2013 Gaal Yahas.
118 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
120 copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
121 "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
122 without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
123 distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
124 permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
125 the following conditions:
126 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
128 in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
129 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
131 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
132 MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
133 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
134 CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
135 TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
136 SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
137perl v5.36.0 2022-07-22 CSV(1)