How to convert a monolithic CSV String into a List?

Question

I have a CSV stored in a String:

Abc, Def, Ghi, Jkl, Mno[CR|LF]
Abc, Def, Ghi, Jkl, Mno[CR|LF]
Abc, Def, Ghi, Jkl, Mno[CR|LF]
Abc, Def, Ghi, Jkl, Mno[CR|LF]

When I open the file in Notepad++ and use "Show All Characters" I see the newline character at the end of each line represented by the [CR|LF] notation I indicated above.

How do convert this monolithic String into a List<String> where each line above represents a separate String in the List but without the [CR|LF] characters?

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 04 '11 at 17:13

2

I think it should be as simple as:

String allData /* = readCSVFromFile() */;
String[] rows = allData.split("\r\n");
List<String> rowList = Arrays.asList(rows);

answered Jul 04 '11 at 17:13

Mark Peters

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Just a note, my answer assumes that `[CR|LF]` means always CR followed by LF. If that's not the case and it could instead contain either or both, you could use a more complex regex like `.split("[\r|\n]+")` – Mark Peters Jul 04 '11 at 18:48

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 04 '11 at 17:31

1

Use a BufferedReader. Something like this:

List<String> rows = new ArrayList<String>();
BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("file.csv"));
String line = null;
while ((line = r.readLine()) != null)
{
    rows.add(line);
}

answered Jul 04 '11 at 17:31

Martijn Courteaux

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It seems like the file's contents are in a `String`, so alternatively you could use a `StringReader` instead of `FileReader`. – Mark Peters Jul 04 '11 at 20:27
@Mark: He says: "When I open it with Notepad++" – Martijn Courteaux Jul 05 '11 at 15:14

How to convert a monolithic CSV String into a List?

2 Answers2