agnes

Project Description
Agnes is a mature javascript framework for handling CSV.

This is not your grandfather's javascript code. No, wait. It is.

Agnes is comprised of three simple, well tested functions.

function	purpose
csvToJson	Convert csv into an array of json objects.
jsonToCsv	Convert a json object (or json array) into csv.
rowDelimiter	Detect the line separator used by the current browser

function: csvToJson

Converts a piece of separated text into an array of Json objects. Assumes the first row of the csv is the name of the properties to create (i.e. assumes the csv includes a row of column headers).

var csvData, jsonData;
csvData = "Name,Age\nJack,12\nJohn,5";
jsonData = agnes.csvToJson(csvData);
alert(JSON.stringify(jsonData)); 

Returns:

{ [Name":"Jack","Age":"12,Name":"John","Age":"5] }

function: jsonToCsv

Converts a json object (or array of json objects) into a separated string. You can optionally provide the row delimiter, field delimiter and qualifying character. If you omit these parameters, sensible defaults are assumed.

var jsonData, csvData;
jsonData = [{ "name" : "Mary" }, { "name" : "Alice" }];
csvData = agnes.jsonToCsv(jsonData);
alert(csvData); 

...returns


name
Mary
Alice

var jsonData, csvData;
jsonData = [{ "name" : "fred", "age" : 22}];
csvData = agnes.jsonToCsv(jsonData, "\r\n", "|", '"');
alert(csvData); 

...returns

name|age
fred|22

function: rowDelimiter

Determines the standard line ending used on your current browser. Does your current browser use just a carriage return? Or does it use a carriage return plus a line feed?

Note that Agnes does not use old school 'agent' investigation, but the more mature approach of 'feature detection' -- making sure she doesn't get tricked into a wrong answer.

var delim = agnes.rowDelimiter();
// in order to show you the invisible characters
// in the result, i now need to escape it...
delim = delim.replace("\r","\\r");
delim = delim.replace("\n","\\n");
delim = delim.replace("\t","\\t");
alert("the standard line separator on this browser seems to be... " + delim);

...returns

the standard line separator on this browser seems to be... \n

(or whatever it happens to be...)