[CSV-23] Excel strategy uses wrong separator

• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 1.0
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Gunnar Wagenknecht
• Created: 07/Oct/08 11:32
• Updated: 14/Aug/14 20:06
• Resolved: 06/Mar/12 11:32

Description

The Excel strategy is defined as follows.

    public static CSVStrategy EXCEL_STRATEGY   = new CSVStrategy(',', '"', COMMENTS_DISABLED, ESCAPE_DISABLED, false, 
                                                                 false, false, false);

However, when I do a "Save as" in Excel the separator used is actually ';'. Thus, parsing the CSV file as suggested in the JavaDoc of CSVParser fails.

String[][] data =
   (new CSVParser(new StringReader("a;b\nc;d"), CSVStrategy.EXCEL_STRATEGY)).getAllValues();

Simple test to reproduce:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.StringReader;

import org.apache.commons.csv.CSVParser;
import org.apache.commons.csv.CSVStrategy;

public class CSVExcelStrategyBug {

	public static void main(final String[] args) {
		try {
			System.out.println("Using ;");
			parse("a;b\nc;d");
			System.out.println();
			System.out.println("Using ,");
			parse("a,b\nc,d");
		} catch (final IOException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}

	}

	private static void parse(final String input) throws IOException {
		final String[][] data = (new CSVParser(new StringReader(input), CSVStrategy.EXCEL_STRATEGY)).getAllValues();
		for (final String[] row : data) {
			System.out.print("[");
			for (final String cell : row) {
				System.out.print("(" + cell + ")");
			}
			System.out.println("]");
		}
	}

}

Actual output:

Using ;
[(a;b)]
[(c;d)]

Using ,
[(a)(b)]
[(c)(d)]

Expected output:

Using ;
[(a)(b)]
[(c)(d)]

Using ,
[(a,b)]
[(c,d)]