Rails FasterCSV "unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n"

Question

I'm having an issue with FasterCSV and my rake db:seeds migration. I get the error: "rake aborted! Unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n (line 2)" on the following seeds.rb data:

require 'csv' 

directory = "db/init_data/"

file_name = "gardenzing020812.csv"
path_to_file = directory + file_name
puts 'Loading Plant records'
# Pre-load all Plant records
n=0
CSV.foreach(path_to_file) do |row|
  Plant.create! :name => row[1],
  :plant_type => row[3],
  :group => row[2],
  :image_path => row[45],
  :height => row[5],
  :sow_inside_outside => row[8]
n=n+1
end

I've searched for a solution to this problem and have discovered that for a lot of folks it's a UTF-8 encoding problem. I've tried requiring iconv and :encoding => 'u', but that then gives me the error "invalid byte sequence in UTF-8".

I'm a newbie, and I can't figure out if it's really an encoding issue that I need to crack (which I've been trying to do unsuccessfully and if so, I could really use some guidance) or, more likely I feel, that I've made a simple misstep and done something wrong with the way I've set up seeds.rb and possibly my excel -> csv file. There's no bad or awkward data in the csv file. It's simple one-word strings, text and integers. Please help!

@muistooshort let me know if you need a more zoomed-in shot. This is the file in its entirety. I truncated my seeds.rb file in the post, but my actual code parses all the columns in this sheet. — Matthew Melone, Feb 09 '12 at 06:10
I see now in the text file that some of my columns have picked up quotes. Is that the issue? — Matthew Melone, Feb 09 '12 at 07:59
That sounds like it could be the problem. You'd be better off quoting all the column values just to be safe. — mu is too short, Feb 09 '12 at 08:05
I've sliced out all the columns that were creating "" around the text, and the migration is still giving me the same error. I'll try putting quotes around everything next, but I was really hoping to avoid that solution as it kinda compromises the original excel doc. — Matthew Melone, Feb 09 '12 at 10:16

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 31 '14 at 07:21

5

Use String.encode(universal_newline: true) instead gsub. It converting CRLF and CR to LF # Always break lines with \n

answered Dec 31 '14 at 07:21

Vaisakh VM

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score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 10 '12 at 16:03

It was as simple as clearing all the formatting off in the csv. Excel seems to have a habit of retaining a lot of the formatting after saving in a csv file, which was causing the failure. After I copied and pasted all the data with no formatting in a new csv file, it was fine.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

1

I do not have enough reputation to comment, but I wanted to say that I have been looking this error across the web day and night for a long time and finally found the solution in the comments, by mu is too short.

I finally got it to work when I put quotes around all of my values.

EDIT: Link to answer!!! Rails FasterCSV "unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n"

edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

Community

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answered Dec 17 '14 at 23:44

Nick Schwaderer

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Can you at least link the post you found it in so people don't have to dig though 5000 of his answers? – Marv Dec 18 '14 at 00:03
@Marv I suspect they're talking about my "You'd be better off quoting all the column values just to be safe." comment on this question. And I'm a little shy of 5000 answers :) – mu is too short Dec 18 '14 at 01:03
@muistooshort Oh. Err, this happened while going through the First Answers review queue. I thought he found the solution in one of your other answers. My bad! – Marv Dec 18 '14 at 01:07
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9200175/rails-fastercsv-unquoted-fields-do-not-allow-r-or-n/27536887?noredirect=1#comment11589600_9200175 – Nick Schwaderer Dec 18 '14 at 04:32
Is there any chance someone could post a code example as to what it looks like to put quotes around the values? is it `:plant_type => row["3"],` ? (assume not) – sulleh Aug 22 '18 at 17:05

Rails FasterCSV "unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n"

3 Answers3

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