VBA read CSV with delimiter in string - csv

Question

I'm trying to read a .csv to work with it in an .accdb
The file has ; as delimiter and "" as string qualifier.
Young and naive as I was I just split the file at the delimiter:
Set oFSO = New FileSystemObject
Set oStream = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFilePath, ForReading)
Do Until oStream.AtEndOfStream
sLine = oStream.ReadLine
sArray = Split(sLine, ";")
....
Now I got a line that reads:
"String";"Str;ing";0;0;0;"String"
So I have delimiter inside one of the strings which makes the code above not work. Any ideas how to solve this?
EDIT:
I've found someone with a similar problem, only with a comma as delimiter. And they solved it using regular expressions.
The problem: I'm absolutely not good with regular expressions. In the example the used this expression and code:
Function regLine(sLine As String) As String
Dim oRegEx As RegExp
Set oRegEx = New RegExp
oRegEx.IgnoreCase = True
oRegEx.Global = True
' Pattern: ",(?=([^"]*"[^"]*")*(?![^"]*"))"
oRegEx.Pattern = ",(?=([^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & "[^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & ")*(?![^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & "))"
regLine = oRegEx.Replace(sLine, ";")
End Function
So I don't really understand the expression. My first idea was to replace the comma with a semicolon but that didn't work.

Answer 1

Option Explicit
Dim line
line ="""String"";""Str;ing"";0;0;0;""String"""
WScript.Echo line
Dim aFields
With New RegExp
.Pattern = "(""[^""]*"")?;"
.Global = True
aFields = Split(.Replace(line, "$1"&Chr(0)),Chr(0))
End With
Dim field
For Each field In aFields
WScript.Echo field
Next
Code is .vbs, but shows how to use the regular expression to replace semicolons not enclosed in quotes with a null character and use the null character to split the line into its fields.

Answer 2

I solved the problem now by writing a loop, that deletes the delimiter if it is in a string.
Function fixLine(sLine As String)
Dim i As Long
Dim bInString As Boolean
bInString = False
fixLine = ""
For i = 1 To Len(sLine)
If Mid(sLine, i, 1) = Chr(34) Then
If bInString Then
bInString = False
Else
bInString = True
End If
End If
If bInString And Mid(sLine, i, 1) = ";" Then
Else
fixLine = fixLine & Mid(sLine, i, 1)
End If
Next
End Function
It kind of feels quick and dirty and I'm not sure about the performance but it works.
EDIT:
I also worked with theabove example I found. It replaces the delimiter in a line outside of strings. So I replaced the delimiter with Chr(0) which I know won't apear in a line and then split at the new delimiter.
Function regLine(sLine As String) As String()
Dim oRegEx As RegExp
Dim sLine2() As String
Set oRegEx = New RegExp
oRegEx.Global = True
'Pattern: ";(?=([^"]*"[^"]*")*(?![^"]*"))"
oRegEx.Pattern = ";(?=([^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & "[^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & ")*(?![^" & Chr(34) & "]*" & Chr(34) & "))"
sLine2 = oRegEx.Replace(sLine, Chr(0))
regLine = Split(sLine2, Chr(0))
End Function

Answer 3

My first question is: Is there any case where a ";" in the string values is a valid string? If so, I don't see any way other than manually verifying the data.
If not, how large is the input file? If it's not too big (for various definitions of "too" :-) ) then just manually scan it for errors.
If it is very large, I'd simple write a preprocesser program that reads the string values then deletes any ";" in those where it occurs. Such a program is only about a dozen lines long. Then run the clean file into Access.