Someone sent me a xlsx excel file and I opened it with excel and saved as csv with utf8 encoding.
I use mysql workbench import wizard to import an excel-made utf8 csv file to a database table. But the imported result missed some data (less than it should have).
And I think it has something to do with the quotechar.
By default the quotechar is double quote but I have some data like this (mixing single quote and double quote):
8'10" foo bar
4" x 6" foo foo bar
I've try to omit the value but it can't (see the error from the pic).
So here I want to figure out:
What does quotechar mean here? How does it work? Why does it matter? Can't it just import everything from the csv file?
How can I import the data correctly while my data mixes single quote and double quote (later I need to retrieve them and use as search keywords, so it'd be better to keep the original form)?
my data looks like this in excel:
You are going to export your data from Excel as a CSV, I assume, so how this looks in Excel is irrelevant.
When you export the data from excel as a CSV format it's going to encapsulate your data in double quotes. Any double quotes in the data itself is going to be escaped by a second double quote automatically by excel.
As an example, if your data is:
8"
When you export it will be:
"8"""
You have to tell Mysql that you are enclosing strings in character ". That is the quotechar it's talking about. It's the second field on that form you are filling out.
I'm not sure how picky MySQl is going to be here since I haven't imported CSV to Mysql in forever and ever and ever. The trick with the Excel CSV output is that if you have data like:
8"
8'
It will output it as CSV:
"8"""
8'
The second record/field doesn't gain the double quote encapsulation since it doesn't contain a character that requires encapsulation (A double quote, a carriage return, or a line feed).
Mysql might choke on that second record (Hopefully it's import process is robust enough to handle encapsulated and non-encaps'd fields though)
Related
When I export the data from excel as a CSV format it encapsulates some data in double quotes.
E.g.
8" becomes "8""". And I believe this operation is trying to get the database to understand the inside quote later on.
but for single quote 8', it keeps the same and this causes problem(see the pic below) while I am importing the csv.
Why not quoting the 8' into "8'" too?
8' becomes ' while importing, while "8'" will result in 8' And not quoting single quote leads some data loss.
question related:
what does quotechar mean in mysql while importing data?
Excel adds extra quotes on CSV export
After doing so many experiments, I finally found a pretty close answer.
Conclusion first:
It is Mysql Workbench's problem. Its import wizard works badly. I test under Navicat for every test data, and Navicat get all things right.
Single quote can caused unexpected behavior.
Test:
By default, Mysql workbench import wizard takes the first row value as column name, while in Navicat, I can configure that.
(All tests files are excel-exported csv utf8 encoding.)
test1:
e.g.: 8'（only 1 record）, without column name.
Mysql: Pop out some unknown error and whatever configuration you change, can't get the original data.
Navicat:works fine.
test2:
e.g.: 8' , only 1 record with column name or have extra records without column name
Mysql: Can handle single quote properly.
Navicat: No problem.
test3:
If single quote exists, for most situation import wizard can't handle double quotes well.
e.g.: Single quote data comes before double quotes data.
Mysql: Fails totally.
Navicat: No problem.
I have a CSV file that I need to format (i.e., turn into) a SQL file for ingestion into MySQL. I am looking for a way to add the text delimiters (single quote) to the text, but not to the numbers, booleans, etc. I am finding it difficult because some of the text that I need to enclose in single quotes have commas themselves, making it difficult to key in to the commas for search and replace. Here is an example line I am working with:
1239,1998-08-26,'Severe Storm(s)','Texas,Val Verde,"DEL RIO, PARKS",'No',25,"412,007.74"
This is FEMA data file, with 131246 lines, I got off of data.gov that I am trying to get into a MySQL database. As you can see, I need to insert a single quote after Texas and before Val Verde, so I tried:
s/,/','/3
But that only replaced the first occurrence of the comma on the first three lines of the file. Once I get past that, I will need to find a way to deal with "DEL RIO, PARKS", as that has a comma that I do not want to place a single quote around.
So, is there a "nice" way to manipulate this data to get it from plain CSV to a proper SQL format?
Thanks
CSV files are notoriously dicey to parse. Different programs export CSV in different ways, possibly including strangeness like embedding new lines within a quoted field or different ways of representing quotes within a quoted field. You're better off using a tool specifically suited to parsing CSV -- perl, python, ruby and java all have CSV parsing libraries, or there are command line programs such as csvtool or ffe.
If you use a scripting language's CSV library, you may also be able to leverage the language's SQL import as well. That's overkill for a one-off, but if you're importing a lot of data this way, or if you're transforming data, it may be worthwhile.
I think that I would also want to do some troubleshooting to find out why the CSV import into MYSql failed.
I would take an approach like this:
:%s/,\("[^"]*"\|[^,"]*\)/,'\1'/g
:%s/^\("[^"]*"\|[^,"]*\)/'\1'/g
In words, look for a double quoted set of characters or , \|, a non-double quoted set of characters beginning with a comma and replace the set of characters in a single quotation.
Next, for the first column in a row, look for a double quoted set of characters or , \|, a non-double quoted set of characters beginning with a comma and replace the set of characters in a single quotation.
Try the csv plugin. It allows to convert the data into other formats. The help includes an example, how to convert the data for importing it into a database
Just to bring this to a close, I ended up using #Eric Andres idea, which was the MySQL load data option:
LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE '/path/to/file.csv'
INTO TABLE MYTABLE FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n';
The initial .csv file still took a little massaging, but not as much as I were to do it by hand.
When I commented that the LOAD DATA had truncated my file, I was incorrect. I was treating the file as a typical .sql file and assumed the "ID" column I had added would auto-increment. This turned out to not be the case. I had to create a quick script that prepended an ID to the front of each line. After that, the LOAD DATA command worked for all lines in my file. In other words, all data has to be in place within the file to load before the load, or the load will not work.
Thanks again to all who replied, and #Eric Andres for his idea, which I ultimately used.
I have an access DB. I exported tables to xlsx. Then I saved as .ods using openOffice
because I found out that phpmyadmin-mysql no longer supports excel files. I have my mySQL database formated exactly as it should to accept the data. I import and everything seems fine except one little detail.
In some fields, the value is NULL instead of the value it should have according to the .ods file. Some rows show the same value for that field correctly, some show NULL.
Also, the "faulty" rows have some fields that show the value 0 for fields that where empty in the imported file (instead of NULL). Default value for those fields in mySQL is NULL. Each row has many fields like that and all of the same data type (tinyint). Some appear correctly NULL and some have the value 0....
I can't see a pattern on all these.
Any help is appreciated.
Check to see that imported strings have ("") quotes and NULL do not and that all are separated appropriately, usually a "," comma with the record/row delimited by ";" semicolon. Best way to check what the MySQL is looking for is to export some existing data to the same format and check it against what you are trying to import. One little missed quote and the deal is off. Be consistent in the use of either double " quotes or single ' quotes. also the ` character is not used as I think. If you are "squishing" your data through an application that applies "smart quotes" like MS word does or "Open Office??' this too can cause issues. Add the word NULL either inside or without quotes in your csv import where values appropriate.
Take this XLS file
I then save this XLS file as CSV and then open it up with a text editor. This is what I see:
Col1,Col2,Col3,Col4,Col5,Col6,Col7
1,ABC,"AB""C","D,E",F,03,"3,2"
I see that the double quote character in column C was stored as AB""C, the column value was enclosed with quotations and the double quote character in the data was replaced with 2 double quote characters to indicate that the quote is occurring within the data and not terminating the column value. I also see that the value for column G, 3,2, is enclosed in quotes so that it is clear that the comma occurs within the data rather than indicating a new column. So far, so good.
I am a little surprised that all of the column values are not enclosed by quotes but even this seems reasonable OK when I assume that EXCEL only specifies column delimieters when special characters like a commad or a dbl quote character exists in the data.
Now I try to use SQL Server to import the csv file. Note that I specify a double quote character as the Text Qualifier character.
And a command char as the Column delimiter character. However, note that SSIS imports column 3 incorrectly,eg, not translating the two consecutive double quote characters as a single occurence of a double quote character.
What do I have to do to get Excel and SSIS to get along?
Generally people avoid the issue by using column delimiter chactacters that are LESS LIKELY to occur in the data but this is not a real solution.
I find that if I modify the file from this
Col1,Col2,Col3,Col4,Col5,Col6,Col7
1,ABC,"AB""C","D,E",F,03,"3,2"
...to this:
Col1,Col2,Col3,Col4,Col5,Col6,Col7
1,ABC,"AB"C","D,E",F,03,"3,2"
i.e, removing the two consecutive quotes in column C's value, that the data is loaded properly, however, this is a little confusing to me. First of all, how does SSIS determine that the double quote between the B and the C is not terminating that column value? Is it because the following characters are not a comma column delimiter or a row delimiter (CRLF)? And why does Excel export it this way?
According to Wikipedia, here are a couple of traits of a CSV file:
Fields containing line breaks (CRLF), double quotes, and commas
should be enclosed in double-quotes. For example:
"aaa","b CRLF
bb","ccc" CRLF
zzz,yyy,xxx
If double-quotes are used to enclose fields, then a double-quote
appearing inside a field must be escaped by preceding it with
another double quote. For example:
"aaa","b""bb","ccc"
However, it looks like SSIS doesn't like it that way when importing. What can be done to get Excel to create a CSV file that could contain ANY special characters used as column delimiters, text delimiters or row delimiters in the data? There's no reason that it can't work using the approach specified in Wikipedia,. which is what I thought the old MS DTS packages used to do...
Update:
If I use Notepad change the input file to
Col1,Col2,Col3,Col4,Col5,Col6,Col7,Col8
"1","ABC","AB""C","D,E","F","03","3,2","AB""C"
Excel reads it just fine
but SSIS returns
The preview sample contains embedded text qualifiers ("). The flat file parser does not support embedding text qualifiers in data. Parsing columns that contain data with text qualifiers will fail at run time.
Conclusion:
Just like the error message says in your update...
The flat file parser does not support embedding text qualifiers in data. Parsing columns that contain data with text qualifiers will fail at run time.
Confirmed bug in Microsoft Connect. I encourage everyone reading this to click on this aforementioned link and place your vote to have them fix this stinker. This is in the top 10 of the most egregious bugs I have encountered.
Do you need to use a comma delimiter.
I used a pipe delimiter with no Text qualifier and it worked fine. Here is my output form the text file.
1|ABC|AB"C|D,E|F|03|3,2
You have 3 options in my opinion.
Read the data into a stage table.
Run any update queries you need on the columns
Now select your data from the stage table and output it to a flat file.
OR
Use pipes are you delimiters.
OR
Do all of this in a C# application and build it in code.
You could send the row to a script in SSIS and parse and build the file you want there as well.
Using text qualifiers and "character" delimited fields is problematic for sure.
Have Fun!
As far as I can see OpenOffice, when it comes to save a file as a csv-file, encloses all strings in quote-characters.
So is there any need for an escape character?
and related to this question:
Does OpenOffice have a default escape character?
I'm also wondering if there is a way to choose the escape character when saving OpenOffice as csv. phpmyadmin was not accepting a 9,000 line 50+ column spreadsheed in .ods format and there doesn't seem to be a way to choose the escape character when saving as CSV.
So I had to save as csv, open in word, and use some find/replace tricks to change the escape character to \ (back slash). Default is to use double quotes to escape double quotes, and phpmyadmin won't accept that format.
To properly convert the file to use \ (back-slash) to escape double-quotes, you have to do this:
Pick a placeholder character string, e.g. 'abcdefg', that does
not occur anywhere in the csv.
Find/replace """ (three double-quotes in a row) with the placeholder. This is to prevent possibly incorrect results in the next step.
Find/replace "" (two quotes in a row, representing one quote that should be escaped), with \" (back-slash double-quote). If you did this without find/replacing """ it's conceivable you could get a result like "\" instead of \"". Better safe than sorry.
Find/replace the placeholder string with \"" (back-slash double-quote double-quote).
That will work, unless you happen to have more than one double-quote in a row in your original text fields, which would result in as many as five double-quotes in a row in the resulting .ods or .xlsx csv file (two double-quotes for each escaped double quote, plus another double quote if its at the end of the field).
Escaping in quotes makes life easier for tools parsing the CSV file.
In a recent version of LibreOffice (3.4.4), the CSV export was not handled correctly by phpMyAdmin. Since LibreOffice doesn't provide an escape character, the phpMyAdmin's default "CSV" import feature "Columns escaped with:" didn't work well. The data was always inconsistent.
However, using the option CSV using LOAD DATA did work, only if the value in Columns escaped by option was removed. I presume phpMyAdmin uses the default MySQL LOAD DATA command, and thus the control is passed to MySQL for data processing. In my scenario it resulted in accurate data import.