csv-writer.js

Super Simple CSV Writer for Javascript

A smack-you-in-the-face simple library for generating RFC 4180 compliant CSV files from javascript objects. It's the interface I can't believe didn't already exist.

##Usage

Just include

<script src="csv-writer.js"></script>

Then create a CSVWriter object. Optionally include a configuration object.

writer = new CSVWriter(config);

Convert an array of objects to a csv string with toCSV(map, content). Where map defines the rules for generating fields, and content is your array. You can think of the resulting CSV as the Cartesian product of map (columns) and content (rows). This guarantees that each row has an equal number of columns.

A map is either an array of functions or of fieldname and function pairings. The function takes an element in the content array.

map = [getName, getAddress, getFilm];
var res = writer.toCSV(map, list_of_disney_princesses);

Or to include headers:

map = [
    {'Name': getName },
    {'Castle': getAddress },
    {'Film': getFilm }];

var res = writer.toCSV(map, list_of_disney_princesses);

###Example

var getName = function(princess) {...};
var getAddress = function(princess) {...};
var getFilm = function(princess) {...};
map = [
    {'Name': getName },
    {'Castle': getAddress },
    {'Film': getFilm }];

var res = writer.toCSV(map, list_of_disney_princesses);

if(res.error) {
    alert(res.error);
}

csvfilecontents = res.data;

If you don't care about column headers, just pass in a list of functions:

The config.header option will only have an effect if the map includes { header: f()} pairings.

##Config

{
    'header': false,
    'newline': '\n'
}

header: true or false. Only applies if the map includes headers (see above). Setting to false overrides the default of true in that case.

newline: '\n', '\r\n', '\r'

(more planned)

##Possible Errors

• Invalid Map Error: The map object has more than one header:f() pairing
• Undefined Map Error: Map function returned undefined on data row
• Null Map Error: Map function returned null on data row

Currently null/undefined return with an error. It is unclear if null/undefined should be converted to some string representation. Let me know if you desire some sort of functionality.

##Testing

So have you tested this? Hell yes! csv-writer.js is aggressively tested against papa-paser.js and with hellish data. Got tabs? quotes? newlines? line feeds? even backspaces? No problem. Check out our testing oracles if you're curious.

##Alternatives This may not be what you're looking for. No prob, check below.

• Papa Parser (mostly reading)
• csv-write-stream (requires node)
• csvwriter (requires node)
• jquery-csv (no write implementation)