CSVCLEAN(1)                         csvkit                         CSVCLEAN(1)

NAME
       csvclean - csvclean Documentation

DESCRIPTION
       Reports and fixes common errors in a CSV file.

   Checks

       o Reports rows that have a different number of columns than the header
         row, if the --length-mismatch option is set.

       o Reports columns that are empty, if the --empty-columns option is set.

       TIP:
          Enable all checks with --enable-all-checks (-a).

   Fixes

       o If a CSV has unquoted cells that contain line breaks, like:

            id,address,country
            1,1 Main St
            Springfield,US
            2,123 Acadia Avenue
            London,GB

         Use --join-short-rows to attempt to correct the errors by merging
         short rows into a single row:

            id,address,country
            1,"1 Main St
            Springfield",US
            2,"123 Acadia Avenue
            London",GB

         To change the string used to join the lines, use --separator. For
         example, with --separator ", ":

            id,address,country
            1,"1 Main St, Springfield",US
            2,"123 Acadia Avenue, London",GB

       o If a CSV has missing delimiters, like:

            id,name,country
            1,Alice
            2,Bob,CA

         You can add the missing delimiters with --fill-short-rows:

            id,name,country
            1,Alice,
            2,Bob,CA

         TIP:
            csvcut without options also adds missing delimiters!

         To change the value used to fill short rows, use --fillvalue. For
         example, with --fillvalue "US":

            id,name,country
            1,Alice,US
            2,Bob,CA

       SEE ALSO:
          --header-normalize-space under Usage.

       NOTE:
          Every csvkit tool does the following:

          o Removes optional quote characters, unless the --quoting (-u)
            option is set to change this behavior

          o Changes the field delimiter to a comma, if the input delimiter is
            set with the --delimiter (-d) or --tabs (-t) options

          o Changes the record delimiter to a line feed (LF or \n)

          o Changes the quote character to a double-quotation mark, if the
            character is set with the --quotechar (-q) option

          o Changes the character encoding to UTF-8, if the input encoding is
            set with the --encoding (-e) option

   Output
       csvclean attempts to make the selected fixes. Then:

       o If the --omit-error-rows option is set, only rows that pass the
         selected checks are written to standard output. If not, all rows are
         written to standard output.

       o If any checks are enabled, error rows along with line numbers and
         descriptions are written to standard error. If there are error rows,
         the exit code is 1.

   Usage

          usage: csvclean [-h] [-d DELIMITER] [-t] [-q QUOTECHAR] [-u {0,1,2,3}] [-b]
                          [-p ESCAPECHAR] [-z FIELD_SIZE_LIMIT] [-e ENCODING] [-S] [-H]
                          [-K SKIP_LINES] [-v] [-l] [--zero] [-V]
                          [FILE]

          Fix common errors in a CSV file.

          positional arguments:
            FILE                  The CSV file to operate on. If omitted, will accept
                                  input as piped data via STDIN.

          optional arguments:
            -h, --help            show this help message and exit
            --length-mismatch     Report data rows that are shorter or longer than the
                                  header row.
            --empty-columns       Report empty columns as errors.
            -a, --enable-all-checks
                                  Enable all error reporting.
            --omit-error-rows     Omit data rows that contain errors, from standard
                                  output.
            --label LABEL         Add a "label" column to standard error. Useful in
                                  automated workflows.
            --header-normalize-space
                                  Strip leading and trailing whitespace and replace
                                  sequences of whitespace characters by a single space
                                  in the header.
            --join-short-rows     Merges short rows into a single row.
            --separator SEPARATOR
                                  The string with which to join short rows. Defaults to
                                  a newline.
            --fill-short-rows     Fill short rows with the missing cells.
            --fillvalue FILLVALUE
                                  The value with which to fill short rows. Defaults to
                                  none.

       See also: Arguments common to all tools.

EXAMPLES
       Test a file with data rows that are shorter and longer than the header
       row:

          $ csvclean examples/bad.csv 2> errors.csv
          column_a,column_b,column_c
          0,mixed types.... uh oh,17
          $ cat errors.csv
          line_number,msg,column_a,column_b,column_c
          1,"Expected 3 columns, found 4 columns",1,27,,I'm too long!
          2,"Expected 3 columns, found 2 columns",,I'm too short!

       NOTE:
          If any data rows are longer than the header row, you need to add
          columns manually: for example, by adding one or more delimiters (,)
          to the end of the header row. csvclean can't do this, because it is
          designed to work with standard input, and correcting an error at the
          start of the CSV data based on an observation later in the CSV data
          would require holding all the CSV data in memory - which is not an
          option for large files.

       Test a file with empty columns:

          $ csvclean --empty-columns examples/test_empty_columns.csv 2> errors.csv
          a,b,c,,
          a,,,,
          ,,c,,
          ,,,,
          $ cat errors.csv
          line_number,msg,a,b,c,,
          1,"Empty columns named 'b', '', ''! Try: csvcut -C 2,4,5",,,,,

       Use csvcut to exclude the empty columns:

          $ csvcut -C 2,4,5 examples/test_empty_columns.csv
          a,c
          a,
          ,c
          ,

       To change the line ending from line feed (LF or \n) to carriage return
       and line feed (CRLF or \r\n) use:

          csvformat -M $'\r\n' examples/dummy.csv

AUTHOR
       Christopher Groskopf and contributors

COPYRIGHT
       2016, Christopher Groskopf and James McKinney

2.0.1                            July 12, 2024                     CSVCLEAN(1)