trying to make a batch / cmd file to shift a few columns around in CSV

[azuranz]

hi there.

i've got a csv file & i'm just tryign to automate the process of moving a few columns around inside it (it's a product pricelist i get from supplier, and i shift the columns to put it in right order for our database)

so i asked a few people and one guy introduced me to FOR /f & cmd file

so far i have reached this solution:

@echo off
::move column5 to column1
for /f "tokens=1-10 delims=," %%a in (file.csv) do echo %%c,%%h,%%b,%%f,,%%b,%%g,,%%e,dove >> test-output.txt

this seems to work ok!

but now i have encounter this problem. The delimiter is , but the csv file has some fields with , in them. So problem is yes fields are delimited by , but they are Enclosed by " " double quote. So the cmd must only delimit based on , & where there is surrounding quotes!

so I don't know what to do. I guess you could make delims="," but then how do you hand end of line start of line!

anyone have ideas? Maybe there is another programming language that can do this very quick also?

[cypher543]

While I don't exactly know how to do what you are asking, Python is a very good language for doing operations such as this. It has nice string formatting functions.

[dfhwze]

you can set the write delimiter on ; , or you can use a regex pattern to allow some ,'s

you just have to ask yourself, how do i know which ,'s are delimiters and hwich are not ... then you can make the pattern