CSV editor?

Posted by: tahir

CSV editor? - 10/06/2025 10:09

We have started working with a client that submits their sales to us in a csv, data is shit so needs cleaning and rearranging before we can import it into our app.

The data contains an EAN13 barcode as one of the columns, obviously this is shown by excel as out of range, which can of course be easily rectified by convert to number, but in practice operators are messing this part up and saving csvs with barcode values of "5.0567E+12" etc

All I need is a simple editor that can represent the csv as rows and columns, no calcs or fancy formatting needed, anything come to mind?
Posted by: tahir

Re: CSV editor? - 10/06/2025 10:13

To answer my own question, yes there is:

https://www.moderncsv.com/download/

exactly what I needed and free for the functionality I require
Posted by: tanstaafl.

Re: CSV editor? - 10/06/2025 21:46

And here I was all impressed with myself because I am such an expert in Excel that I can sometimes get conditional formatting to do what I want, and once in an excess of bravery even got a simple VLOOKUP to work. (I never had the courage to try out the newer XLOOKUP function.)

You're a good bit out of my league, I'm afraid.

tanstaafl.
Posted by: tahir

Re: CSV editor? - 11/06/2025 11:06

I think in general you're much more advanced than me, never used a VLOOKUP! This is a simple data entry issue, and obviously my solution means ditching Excel rather than doing anything clever with it
Posted by: jmwking

Re: CSV editor? - 13/06/2025 11:51

My son (recently graduated with a degree in data science and starting at Bloomberg this coming week - yay!) laughs at my use of Excel for anything. He cleans up data in R.

Kids!
Posted by: K447

Re: CSV editor? - 15/06/2025 13:19

Originally Posted By: jmwking
… He cleans up data in R. …
What is R ?
Posted by: jmwking

Re: CSV editor? - 15/06/2025 15:06

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)

"R is a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization. It has been widely adopted in the fields of data mining, bioinformatics, data analysis, and data science."

Also, a sledgehammer approach to manipulating small bits of data, used by my son to make me look old. smile
Posted by: K447

Re: CSV editor? - 16/06/2025 05:15

Originally Posted By: jmwking
… "R is a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization…
The inclusion of Fortran in the Wiki description took me back, waaaay back.
Posted by: Tim

Re: CSV editor? - 16/06/2025 13:53

Originally Posted By: K447
Originally Posted By: jmwking
… "R is a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization…
The inclusion of Fortran in the Wiki description took me back, waaaay back.

Some of our Aero Models at work still have FORTRAN embedded deep in them. Occasionally, I'm asked to convert some FORTRAN over to C++, but that is increasingly rare.
Posted by: tahir

Re: CSV editor? - 17/06/2025 12:18

Originally Posted By: jmwking
My son (recently graduated with a degree in data science and starting at Bloomberg this coming week - yay!) laughs at my use of Excel for anything. He cleans up data in R.

Kids!


My daughter just laughed at me when I mentioned this post to her, she said she doesn't even know how to use Excel and she'd have done it in R for me if I'd asked...kids!