how to remove double quotes while reading CSV

Question

public class CSVTeast {
  public static void main(String[] args) {

      CSVTeast obj = new CSVTeast();
        obj.run();

      }

      public void run() {

        String csvFile = "D:\\text.csv";
        BufferedReader br = null;
        String line = "";
        String cvsSplitBy = "~";

        try {

            br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(csvFile));
            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {

                    // use comma as separator

                String[] csvRead = line.split(cvsSplitBy);




                System.out.println("Value [date= " + csvRead[5] 
                                     + " , name=" + csvRead[9]+"]");

            }

        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
            if (br != null) {
                try {
                    br.close();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }

        System.out.println("Done");
      }


}

Output is

Value [date= "POLICY_CHANGE_EFFECTIVE_DATE" , name="AGENCY_NAME"]

Value [date= "2014-04-01" , name="USI INSURANCE SERVICES]--this value stated with double qoutes but not end with same . 

Expected output

Value [date= POLICY_CHANGE_EFFECTIVE_DATE , name=AGENCY_NAME]

Value [date= 2014-04-01 , name=USI INSURANCE SERVICES] 

Answer 1

You can try passing the value through the String.replace() method.

So your code would be:

public class CSVTeast {
 public static void main(String[] args) {

  CSVTeast obj = new CSVTeast();
     obj.run();
  }
  public void run() {
    String csvFile = "D:\\text.csv";
    BufferedReader br = null;
    String line = "";
    String cvsSplitBy = "~";
    try {
        br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(csvFile));
        while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
            String[] csvRead = line.split(cvsSplitBy);
            System.out.println("Value [date= " + csvRead[5].replace("\"","") 
                                 + " , name=" + csvRead[9].replace("\"","")+"]");
        }

    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally {
        if (br != null) {
            try {
                br.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
    System.out.println("Done");
  }
}

Answer 2

There's a nice CSV Reader for Java that will handle the mess of this for you, http://opencsv.sourceforge.net/

It has a maven package if your project is maven, else you can download the JARs there.

Answer 3

If the qoutemarks are at the beginning of every CSV line, you can do:

csvRead[5].substring(1, csvRead[5].length()-1)

That will remove the first and last character of that particular string. You then need to store the results somewhere or print it out.

Answer 4

It is also important to check if the String starts with a double quote, otherwise the code will start deleting the first character of the CSV value. I do this in my code in one of my apps, where my CSV value is coming in rowData[1] which sometimes have double quotes and sometimes it doesn't, depending upon the number of words in the value String.

String item = (String.valueOf(rowData[1].charAt(0)).equals("\"") ? rowData[1].substring(1, rowData[1].length() - 1) : rowData[1]);