perlmeditation
Tux
<p>This is a follow-up on [614039|my previous post] on [mod://Text::CSV_XS]</p>
<p>I have been digging a bit to find what people consider loose ends in [mod://Text::CSV_XS], and tried to summarize that (in no particular order) in the new TODO list. Here <i>TODO</i> gives no guarantee that it will be done, nor on any implementation or API that it might suggest, it is there now just so I/we do not forget to think about these issues.</p>
<p>I'd like to get thoughts/feedback/suggestions about items on this list, and how valuable you consider adding these features to a modules so heavily used by other applications.</p>
<p>[jZed] asked me to also post to this to the dbi-users list, cause many DBI users (have to) deal with CSV data, which I already did. So start shooting ...</p>
<font size="-2">
<h4>TODO (updated to 0.80 on 25-12-2010)</h4>
<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="more_errors_warnings" class="item">More Errors & Warnings</a></strong>
<dd>
<p>New extensions ought to be clear and concise in reporting what error
occurred where and why, and possibly also tell a remedy to the problem.
error_diag is a (very) good start, but there is more work to be done here.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<p>Basic calls should croak or warn on illegal parameters. Errors should be
documented.</p>
</dd>
<dt><strong><a name="setting_meta_info" class="item">setting meta info</a></strong>
<dd>
<p>Future extensions might include extending the <c>meta_info ()</c>,
<c>is_quoted ()</c>, and <c>is_binary ()</c> to accept setting these
flags for fields, so you can specify which fields are quoted in the
<c>combine ()</c>/<c>string ()</c> combination.</p>
</dd>
<dd>
<pre>
$csv->meta_info (0, 1, 1, 3, 0, 0);
$csv->is_quoted (3, 1);</pre>
</dd>
<dt><strong><a name="combined_methods" class="item">combined methods</a></strong>
<dd>
<p>Requests for adding means (methods) that combine <c>combine ()</c> and
<c>string ()</c> in a single call will <strong>not</strong> be honored. Likewise for
<c>parse ()</c> and <c>fields ()</c>. Given the trouble with embedded newlines,
Using <c>getline ()</c> and <c>print ()</c> instead is the preferred way to go.</p>
</dd>
<dt><strong><a name="parse_the_whole_file_at_once" class="item">Parse the whole file at once</a></strong>
<dd>
<p>Implement new methods that enable parsing of a complete file at once,
returning a list of hashes. Possible extension to this could be to
enable a column selection on the call:</p>
<pre>
my @AoH = $csv->parse_file ($filename, { cols => [ 1, 4..8, 12 ]});</pre>
<p>Returning something like</p>
<pre>
[ { fields => [ 1, 2, "foo", 4.5, undef, "", 8 ],
flags => [ ... ],
errors => [ ... ],
},
{ fields => [ ... ],
.
.
},
]</pre>
<p>Note that <c>getline_all ()</c> already returns all rows for an open
stream, but this will not return flags.</p>
</dd>
</dd>
<dt><strong><a name="ebcdic" class="item">EBCDIC</a></strong>
<dd>
<p>The hard-coding of characters and character ranges makes this module
unusable on EBCDIC system. Using some #ifdef structure could enable
these again without loosing speed. Testing would be the hard part.</p>
</dd>
</dl>
</font>
<hr />
<p>The most current state is available on the [http://repo.or.cz/r/Text-CSV_XS.git|public GIT repo].</p>
<!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only -->
<div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-200365">
<br />
Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn
</div></div>