John Corner While CSV files are useful for storing large amounts of data in spreadsheet format, they do have some drawbacks. In this blog, we discussed some of the issue with CSV files and how to fix them. Continue reading.
When you attempt to open (import) CSV files, there are some fairly frequent problems that you may find and have to struggle with regardless of the contents in your file.
CSV is not yet a fully defined format, and there are numerous methods for producing a CSV. Delimiters, encoding, and other options are available.
It is critical to understand that the first step in avoiding errors in CSV is to ensure that each row of data has an identical structure. The same number of fields, in the same sequence (as indicated by the header order), and using the same delimiters must be included in every row.
CSV files and comparable rows and columns can sometimes cause problems. To fix the data structure issue, you need to remove duplicates from CSV files.
What are the Most Typical Problems with CSV Files?
(1) Encoding issues
It’s nearly always an encoding issue if you import your data into a spreadsheet or program and your special characters appear as question marks or unintelligible text. Check the UTF-8 encoding of the CSV file once more.
(2) File Type Mistakes
It’s possible that you produced a file in a text editor and neglected to save it as a “.CSV” file; instead, it may have been a “.TXT” file. Or possibly you used Excel and simply left the file’s extension as “.XLS” instead of saving it as CSV. Simply save your file with the.csv extension to solve the problem.
Find the Finest Way to Split CSV into Multiple Files
(3) Empty Rows and Columns
If you have prepared a CSV in Excel, extra columns in the worksheet may also be to blame. Excel may wrongly believe there is data there, even if all you see is a blank. This can be fixed by deleting the superfluous columns from the file and ensuring that the data and headers are present in the remaining columns.
However, if you receive an empty row error, you can check to see if your file contains any further rows that are empty of data. If so, simply remove them!
You may need to look for more potential mistake sources. Such as hidden columns, merged cells, etc., if you’re using Excel or another spreadsheet tool.
(4) Missing or Incorrect Header
This issue will probably manifest as “missing header columns,” “invalid header,” “header not found,” etc. This indicates that your file’s header line is either missing or structured incorrectly. The latter is more typical. This mistake can be brought on by things like unnecessary spaces, an imbalance in the amount of header columns and columns with data, etc.
Basically, check to see if you have an accurate header row. This implies that you should strive to refrain from using any symbols in header other than letters, integers, and underscores. Additionally, ensure sure the header line is delimited using the same method as the rest of the file. Keep in mind that the structure of your CSV file is streamlined. The order of the columns in each row should be text, delimiter, text, delimiter, text, delimiter.
