FileHelpers quote and comma in fields

Question

I have a csv file that I am parsing with FileHelpers and I have a situation where both a quote and a comma can appear in a field:

Comma:

323,"PC","28/02/2014","UNI001","5000",0,"Return","Returned Goods, damaged",88.00,15.40,"T1","N",0.00,"R","-",

Quote

 148,"SI","13/01/2014","CGS001","4000",1,"5","17" Monitor",266.00,45.39,"T1","Y",311.39,"R","-", 

My class is:

[DelimitedRecord(",")]
public class Transaction
{
    public int TRAN_NUMBER;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string TypeText;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string DATE;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string TransactionAccount;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string NOMINAL_CODE;

    public int DEPT_NUMBER;

    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string INV_REF;

    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string DETAILS;

    public string NET_AMOUNT;
    public string TAX_AMOUNT;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string TaxCodeName;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string PAID_FLAG;

    public string AMOUNT_PAID;

    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string VatReconText;
    [FieldQuoted('"', QuoteMode.OptionalForBoth)]
    public string BankReconText;

    public string RECON_DATE;
}

I have found this thread FileHelpers nested quotes and commas - parsing error

engine.BeforeReadRecord += (sender, args) => 
args.RecordLine = args.RecordLine.Replace(@"""", "'");

But it only helps with quotes appearing problem and not the commas.

Can both of these problem be solved with FileHelpers or I should look for an alternative solution?

Answer 1

You can implement a BeforeReadRecord event to 'fix' your bad lines.

FileHelperEngine engine = new FileHelperEngine<Transaction>(); 
engine.BeforeReadRecord += BeforeEvent; 

private void BeforeEvent(EngineBase engine, BeforeReadRecordEventArgs e)
{
    var line = e.RecordLine;

    // you have to write the following replacement routine...
    var fixedLine = ReplaceEmbeddedCommasAndQuotesWithSomethingDifferent(line); 

    e.RecordLine = fixedLine; // replace the line with the fixed version
}

And after you've read the records in you could process them to reverse the replacement process to fix them.

If you prefer to define all the logic in the FileHelpers class itself, you can implement INotifyRead<Transaction> instead of using the event.