csvclean - csvkit 1.4.0 documentation

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# csvclean

## Description

Cleans a CSV file of common syntax errors:

- reports rows that have a different number of columns than the header row

- attempts to correct the CSV by joining short rows into a single row

Note that every csvkit tool does the following:

- removes optional quote characters, unless the –quoting (-u) option is set to change this behavior

- changes the field delimiter to a comma, if the input delimiter is set with the –delimiter (-d) or –tabs (-t) options

- changes the record delimiter to a line feed (LF or `\n`)

- changes the quote character to a double-quotation mark, if the character is set with the –quotechar (-q) option

- changes the character encoding to UTF-8, if the input encoding is set with the –encoding (-e) option

Outputs [basename]_out.csv and [basename]_err.csv, the former containing all valid rows and the latter containing all error rows along with line numbers and descriptions:

    usage: csvclean [-h] [-d DELIMITER] [-t] [-q QUOTECHAR] [-u {0,1,2,3}] [-b]
                    [-p ESCAPECHAR] [-z FIELD_SIZE_LIMIT] [-e ENCODING] [-S] [-H]
                    [-K SKIP_LINES] [-v] [-l] [--zero] [-V] [-n]
                    [FILE]

    Fix common errors in a CSV file.

    positional arguments:
      FILE                  The CSV file to operate on. If omitted, will accept
                            input as piped data via STDIN.

    optional arguments:
      -h, --help            show this help message and exit
      -n, --dry-run         Do not create output files. Information about what
                            would have been done will be printed to STDERR.

See also: Arguments common to all tools.

## Examples

Test a file with known bad rows:

    $ csvclean -n examples/bad.csv
    Line 1: Expected 3 columns, found 4 columns
    Line 2: Expected 3 columns, found 2 columns

To change the line ending from line feed (LF or `\n`) to carriage return and line feed (CRLF or `\r\n`) use:

    csvformat -M $'\r\n' examples/dummy.csv