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Using csvcols

Simple usage of building a CSV file one row at a time.

    csvcols one two three > 3col-2.csv
    csvcols 1 2 3 >> 3col-2.csv
    cat 3col-2.csv

Example parsing a pipe delimited string into a CSV line.

    csvcols -d "|" "one|two|three" > 3col-2.csv
    csvcols -delimiter "|" "1|2|3" >> 3col-2.csv
    cat 3col-2.csv

Using a pipe filter a 3 column CSV for columns 1 and 3 into 2col-2.csv.

    cat 3col-2.csv | csvcols -col 1,3 > 2col-2.csv

Using options filter a 3 column CSV file for columns 1,3 into 2col-2.csv.

    csvcols -i 3col-2.csv -col 1,3 -o 2col-2.csv

Quoting issues

Sometimes CSV files have sloppy or problematic quoting. Two options are provided (-use-lazy-quotes, -trim-leading-space). In the example below the CSV has trailing white space in the second row. By using -use-lazy-quotes option we can get the first two columns without running into CSV parsing errors.

    csvcols -i quoting-example.csv -use-lazy-quotes -col 1,2

Input (with trailing whitespace in row 2)

    "A","B","C@caltech.edu","2017-03-27 14:38:57","Yes","CCE","refund of my deposit"
    "C","D","E@caltech.edu","2017-04-05 10:50:42","Yes","EAS","receive a refund of my deposit"

Output

    A,B
    C,D

example files