Written CSV file writes only one cell per row

Question

I've written a Java class to generate CSV file :

public class CSVGenerator {

    private static String REFERRAL_HEADER = "Position,Mail,Invitations,Qualified invitations";
    private static String TOPS_HEADER = "Position,Mail,Number of conferences,Number of new contacts, Average conf duration";

    public static String generate(String source, JsonNode root) throws IOException {
        String result = "";
        CSVWriter writer = new CSVWriter(new FileWriter(source+".csv"));
        if (source.compareTo("referral") == 0)
            result = REFERRAL_HEADER;
        else if (source.compareTo("tops") == 0)
            result = TOPS_HEADER;
        writer.writeNext(result.split(","));
        Iterator<JsonNode> it = root.getElements();
        while (it.hasNext()) {
            Iterator<JsonNode> it2 = it.next().getElements();
            result = "";
            while (it2.hasNext())
            {
                result += it2.next().asText();
                if (it2.hasNext())
                    result += ",";
            }
            writer.writeNext(result.split(","));
        }
        writer.close();
        return result;
    }
}

The resulting file isn't well formated. There's only one cell by row, containing all the cell and the separating comma like this :

header1,header2,header3
1,support,test
2,alpha,gamma

What am I doing wrong ?

EDIT:

To be more precise on the output

I have : "header1,header2,header3","",""

I want : "header1","header2","header3"

Here's my output. Each row in one unique cell.

   ""Position","Mail","Invitations","Qualified invitations""
    ""1","xxxxx.com","129","23""
    ""2","xxxx.com","54","8""
    ""3","xxxx.com","197","5""
    ""4","xxxx","13","5""
    ""5","xxxx","8","4""
    ""6","xxxx.com","4","4""
    ""7","xxx.com","31","3""
    ""8","xxx.com","30","3""
    ""9","xxx.com","18","3""
    ""10","xxx.com","13","3""

I won't put emails and stuff here. The problem is that there is one cell for one row. It's like the comma separation doesn't work. So I have : "header1,header2,header3","","" instead of "header1","header2","header3" — Yabada, Jul 19 '13 at 15:07
[What does your step debugger tell you?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25385173/what-is-a-debugger-and-how-can-it-help-me-diagnose-problems) — , Mar 14 '18 at 00:52

score -1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 28 '14 at 09:45

-1

Maybe this would be better. Cheers!

result += \"+data.asText()+\";

edited Apr 28 '14 at 09:45

RobEarl

7,862
6
35
50

answered Jul 19 '13 at 15:20

Sadbrute

30
7

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 19 '13 at 15:28

-1

Did you try putting quotes around the result attribute;

result += "\""+data.asText()+"\"";

Bearing in mind I'm not familiar with jsondata object.

Also you should write each line by line rather than appending everything at the end.

And yes, have a look at the builtin CSVReader and CSVWriter.

answered Jul 19 '13 at 15:28

WattoWatto

159
8

I followed your advices, same result. – Yabada Jul 19 '13 at 15:34
Okay, try writing it to console and see what's actually generating (result variable), can you put that here... – WattoWatto Jul 19 '13 at 15:38
Ok, as you would already have noticed, the generated data is messed up – WattoWatto Jul 22 '13 at 14:32
Yes because it's on a unique cell and not one cell by string. – Yabada Jul 22 '13 at 14:33
how about the string from json source, you might want to trim whitespaces, also read CSVWriter constructor parameters for usage of seperators... – WattoWatto Jul 22 '13 at 14:46

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 19 '13 at 15:43

-1

Try adding quotes around the header fields:

private static String REFERRAL_HEADER = "\"Position\",\"Mail\",\"Invitations\",\"Qualified invitations\"\n";
private static String TOPS_HEADER = "\"Position\",\"Mail\",\"Number of conferences\",\"Number of new contacts\", \"Average conf duration\"\n";

answered Jul 19 '13 at 15:43

Rob Smith

434
4
3

I tried, since i use CSVWriter it just result in ""Position"" because CSVWriter already put quotes – Yabada Jul 19 '13 at 15:47

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 27 '15 at 03:43

I tried a subset of your code in a groovy shell and I got correct results:

groovy:000> string = new java.io.StringWriter()
===> 
csv = new CSVWriter(string)
===> au.com.bytecode.opencsv.CSVWriter@4d9ac0b4
groovy:000> csv.writeNext(REFERRAL_HEADER.split(","))
===> null
groovy:000> string.toString()
===> "Position","Mail","Invitations","Qualified invitations"

You might try using commons-csv instead of that CSVWriter. That library is a little funky because it is tailored to databases.

Written CSV file writes only one cell per row

4 Answers4