tab-delimited to csv

[Adam Vande More]

John Almberg wrote:
>
> On Feb 16, 2009, at 12:55 PM, Roland Smith wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 11:55:50AM -0500, John Almberg wrote:
>>> Can anyone suggest a way to convert a tab-delimited file to csv using
>>> standard unix utilities? I could whip up a Ruby script to do it, but
>>
>> As long as the files don't contain commas themselves,
>
> Right, that's the tricky bit. I could use tr otherwise.
>
>>
>>> I hate to reinvent the wheel.
>>
>> I'd whip up that script. There is a shareware tab2csv utility for
>> windows for $49.95: 
>> http://www.download32.com/info-pack-com-tab2csv-i31827.html
>
> I'm working on it, right now.
>
> I also saw that windows utility, but doesn't help me much.
>
>>
>> OTOH, if you have a spreadsheet program like Gnumeric or OpenOffice
>> installed, you might be able to script those to import from 
>> tab-delimited
>> and export to CSV. Admittedly that is like using a nuke to kill a fly.
>
> Actually, the problem arises because I have a client who is exporting 
> a 'database' file from Excel 2000 (don't ask), to .csv, and Excel is 
> so stupid that it is not putting quotes around a field that contains 
> commas. Duh.
>
> Excel seems to export to tab-delimited format without making any fatal 
> errors, but I need a real .csv file for import.
>
> Thus my need to convert from tab to (real) csv.
>
> -- John
>
There is this:

http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/arb/psion/

Have no idea if it complies or works as you want.

But if you're dealing with just one so called "database" from Excel I 
would go with either checking the settings on the Excel export(in OO.org 
you can specify w/ or w/out quotes) as they may have missed the option.  
Or simply get the original file, open it in OO.org and do it from there 
as was basically suggested earlier.


I would have thought something like would exist as it's certainly useful 
like dos2unix