port to convert comma delimited file

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2003-03-25 20:51, Dru <dlavigne6 at cogeco.ca> wrote:
> I have a comma delimited file with approximately 7000 rows and 5
> columns.  I have absolutely no database skills and and almost as
> much HTML skill, yet I need to convert this file into an HTML
> table. Is there something in the ports collection that will do this
> for me, a sort of converter for dummies? Barring that, is there any
> port that will do this, hopefully with docs so I can learn as I go?

Someone mentioned Perl.  Try the following little Perl snippet:

	#!/usr/bin/perl

	print "<TABLE>\n";
	while (defined($line = <STDIN>)) {
	    chomp $line;
	    print "<TR><TD>" . join("</TD><TD>", split(/;/, $line)) .
		"</TD></TR>\n";
	}
	print "</TABLE>\n";

Save this to a file called csv2html.pl and then run it like this:

	$ perl csv2html.pl < filename.csv > filename.html

The power of Unix as an environment comes from the ability to write
small, throw-away programs like this one, in one of the dozens of
scripting languages that are usually available.  Why hunt for a port
to do something so simple[1] ?

[1] For some definintion of `simple'.