csv-parser

Streaming CSV parser that aims for maximum speed as well as compatibility with the csv-spectrum CSV acid test suite

npm install csv-parser

csv-parser can convert CSV into JSON at at rate of around 90,000 rows per second (perf varies with data, try bench.js with your data).

Usage

Simply instantiate csv and pump a csv file to it and get the rows out as objects

You can use csv-parser in the browser with browserify

var csv = require('csv-parser')
var fs = require('fs')

fs.createReadStream('some-csv-file.csv')
  .pipe(csv())
  .on('data', function(data) {
    console.log('row', data)
  })

The data emitted is a normalized JSON object

The csv constructor accepts the following options as well

var stream = csv({
  raw: false,     // do not decode to utf-8 strings
  separator: ',', // specify optional cell separator
  quote: '"',     // specify optional quote character
  escape: '"',    // specify optional escape character (defaults to quote value)
  newline: '\n',  // specify a newline character
  strict: true    // require column length match headers length
})

It accepts too an array, that specifies the headers for the object returned:

var stream = csv(['index', 'message'])

// Source from somewere with format 12312,Hello World
origin.pipe(stream)
  .on('data', function(data) {
    console.log(data) // Should output { "index": 12312, "message": "Hello World" }
  })

or in the option object as well

var stream = csv({
  raw: false,     // do not decode to utf-8 strings
  separator: ',', // specify optional cell separator
  quote: '"',     // specify optional quote character
  escape: '"',    // specify optional escape character (defaults to quote value)
  newline: '\n',  // specify a newline character
  headers: ['index', 'message'] // Specifing the headers
})

If you do not specify the headers, csv-parser will take the first line of the csv and treat it like the headers

Command line tool

There is also a command line tool available. It will convert csv to line delimited JSON.

npm install -g csv-parser

Open a shell and run

$ csv-parser --help # prints all options
$ printf "a,b\nc,d\n" | csv-parser # parses input

Options

You can specify these CLI flags to control the JSON serialization output format

• outputSeparator - default \n, what to put between JSON items in the output
• beforeOutput - default empty, what to put at beginning of output
• afterOutput - default \n, what to put at end of output

For example, to produce an object with a JSON array of items as output:

--beforeOutput='{"items":[' --afterOutput=]} --outputSeparator=,

License

MIT