deserializing a csv stream to a vector of structures

Question

I have a Visual Studio 2008 C++ project where I would like to be able to take a list of comma-separated values stored in a std::stringstream and put them in a vector like this:

struct Foo
{
    std::string A;
    std::string B;
    std::string C;
}

typedef std::vector< Foo > FooList; 

std::stringstream csv;  // contains comma separated values

Such that if the stream contained "My,Mother,Eats,\nDonuts,From,Menards", the resulting structure would be:

{ { "My", "Mother", "Eats" },
  { "Donuts", "From", "Menards" } }

What's the best way to accomplish this? I was looking at using boost.split if there is a way to specify how the string is copied to the vector.

FooList list;
boost::split( list, csv.str(), boost::is_any_of( "," ) );

I have control over the stream data, so if formatting it slightly differently makes things easier, I can do that.

Way more info on this topic here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/236129/how-to-split-a-string-in-c — Steve Townsend, Jul 08 '11 at 18:38

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 08 '11 at 18:22

4

// Input
std::stringstream csv;

// Prepare variables
FooList v;
std::vector<string> tokens(3);
std::string line;

// Iterate over lines
while (std::getline(csv, tmp)) {

   // Grab comma-delimited tokens
   tokens.clear();
   boost::split(tokens, tmp, boost::is_any_of(","));

   // Verify line format
   if (tokens.size() != 3)
      throw "There weren't three entries in that line >.<";

   // Create and store `Foo`
   Foo f = { tokens[0], tokens[1], tokens[2] };
   v.push_back(f);
}

answered Jul 08 '11 at 18:22

Lightness Races in Orbit

378,754
76
643
1,055

1

Until the value is quoted and has a comma in it :-D – Jul 08 '11 at 20:27
@Vlad: Yes, until that. The OP didn't state that that is possible. OK, he didn't state that it is not, either, but he _did_ give a usage example and no quotes were present. – Lightness Races in Orbit Jul 09 '11 at 00:08

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '11 at 20:23

Try:

std::stringstream csv;

FooList v;

std::string line;    
while (std::getline(csv, tmp))
{
   std::stringstream  linestream(line);

   Foo item;
   std::getline(linestream, item.A, ',');
   std::getline(linestream, item.B, ',');
   std::getline(linestream, item.C, ',');

   v.push_back(item);
}

deserializing a csv stream to a vector of structures

2 Answers2