Compatible with IntelliJ IDEA PhpStorm WebStorm PyCharm RubyMine AppCode CLion Gogland DataGrip Rider MPS Android Studio - 2016.3.2 and newer
This plugin introduces CSV (Comma-Separated Values) as a language to Jetbrains IDE with a syntax definition, structured language elements and associated file types (.csv/.tsv). This enables default editor features like syntax validation, highlighting and inspections for CSV files.
- CSV/TSV file detection
- table editor
- customizable text editor
- syntax validation
- syntax highlighting (customizable)
- content formatting (customizable)
- quick fix inspections
- intentions (Alt+Enter), e.g. Quote/Unquote (all), Shift Column Left/Right
- structure view (header-entry layout)
- support for ',', ';', '|' and '↹' as value separator
- highlight of active column values
- customizable column coloring
- tab (↹) separator highlighting
(see full changelog)
The CSV syntax parser follows the standard defined in IETF 4180 but tolerates leading and trailing whitespaces of escaped text and accepts basically every literal as text data. This results in a less restrictive checks and contributes to the flexibility of this format. The goal of the plugin is to support editing files in CSV format, not introducing new hurdles.
Being strict, the following CSV snippet is actually incorrect cause of the leading whitespaces. However, it is accepted by the plugins syntax parser implementation:
"firstName", "lastName", "birthday"
Besides the mentioned diversion from the standard definition, syntax errors will be detected and can be inspected. Please note that if a document is syntactically incorrect, other features like code formatting or the structure view can not function properly.
CSV files provide a high degree of flexibility and can be used universally for all kind of data. This led to a variety of CSV derivatives like semicolon or pipe separated values, which share the common format but make use of a different separator.
The plugin supports project specific separator setting. New separators can be added fairly easy in the parser definition of the source code.
Tab (↹) can be explicitly set as a separator for CSV files. Additionally the file type TSV was introduced as a kind of CSV language. For TSV files the same formatter and code style settings are applied as for CSV itself, but the separator is considered to be a tab. All functionality that is available for plain CSV files (inspections, intentions, structure view, etc.) can be used for TSV as well.
The plugin provides editing of CSV files via a table editor since version 2.0.0. This editor is NOT related to the Edit as table... functionality of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate/PhpStorm/DataGrip/etc. and does not share any implementation or settings. It is a an alternative to the CSV text editor and not meant to replace or mirror the capabilities of the Jetbrains "Data" tab.
!!! IMPORTANT !!!
The table editor requires a syntactically correct formatted CSV file. If the file can't be parsed, the table editor will be not available. The file needs to be fixed first via a text editor before it can be viewed and edited in the table editor.
Using the table editor might change the format of the CSV file: Until version 2.1.0 all fields were surrounded by double quotes and any spaces that are not part of the content was removed! Since version 2.1.0 the default changed but the described behavior can still be enabled (see Editor Settings -> Enforce value quoting).
The table editor comes with a custom undo/redo feature (the arrows in the upper right corner) to keep general track of changes to the table (add, remove, edit rows/columns). For text changes within a single cell, the default undo/redo functionality can be used.
A right-click within the table provides a context menu to add/remove rows, right-click on the table header to add/remove columns.
Please note that the actions within the context menu are meant for the current selection of row(s) and column(s), not necessarily for the cell or header where the context menu appears! A right-click does not trigger a selection change by default.
To support working with the table editor fluently, a set of key bindings are available for manipulating and navigating the table view:
- ARROW KEYS navigate through the table
- ENTER start editing current cell (NOTE: mostly any default key triggers an edit)
- CTRL+ENTER stop editing current cell
- CTRL+LEFT adds a new column before the current cell
- CTRL+RIGHT adds a new column after the current cell
- CTRL+UP adds a new row before the current cell
- CTRL+DOWN adds a new row after the current cell
- CTRL+DELETE/BACKSPACE deletes the current selected row(s)
- CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE/BACKSPACE deletes the current selected column(s)
- DELETE/BACKSPACE clear content of selected cell(s)
- File > Settings > Editor > General > CSV/TSV Editor
The plugin introduces an enhanced text editor supporting custom settings - and a table editor. The settings for those can be adjusted in the corresponding CSV/TSV editor settings menu.
The preferred editor usage can be switched between "Text Editor first", "Table Editor first" or "Text Editor only", which has an effect on the editor tab order (or whether the table editor is shown at all). A "Table Editor only" option is not available (mainly due to the table editor restrictions when handling erroneous CSV files).
The highlighting of the current caret row might interfere with custom background color settings and can be enabled/disabled for CSV/TSV files here.
An easy way to switch Column Highlighting on or off (in text editor).
Enable/disable highlighting (and choose the highlight color) of tab characters (↹) in their role as value separator (TSV). Tabs as part of a value are therefore not highlighted on purpose.
Enable/disable the info balloon that appears at the caret position in the text editor.
Set whether soft wrapping should be activated for CSV/TSV. It still can be changed file specific with right-click on the editors left outer margin.
Defines how many lines of text are shown in one editor cell by default. Auto does recalculate the height on the fly that can cause some flickering while editing. This setting can be changed in the table editor itself per file.
Enables/disables the info panel at the bottom of the table editor.
Always quotes a single value on save - even if not required.
An easy way to switch Column Highlighting on or off (in table editor).
The different symbols of a CSV document, namely the separator (comma), the quotes, the escaped literals and the text elements itself, are highlighted by a coloring scheme that can be customized:
- File > Settings > Editor > Color Scheme > CSV
Preset colors are based on Jetbrains IDE defaults and support the different UI themes.
Besides defining colors and font-style variants for the different CSV symbols, additionally up to 10 different column highlight colors can be defined. Those colors are applied to the columns round robin. Undefined column highlight colors will be skipped if they are not followed by any other color definition.
- File > Settings > Editor > Code Style > CSV
Formatting CSV is tricky: On one hand it is easy cause the language has only four different symbols and is generally easy to handle. On the other hand, formatting elements like whitespaces and tabs do have a meaning in CSV. However, in reality when parsing CSV, the leading and trailing whitespaces are quite often ignored or trimmed. Formatting can be completely disabled if no option is selected at all at the settings screen.
The formatting is applied to CSV documents as normal code formatting:
- Code > Reformat code (Ctrl+Alt+L)
The formatting examples are based on the following CSV snippet as input:
"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben , Berlin , 2
The following separators are currently supported: , (Comma), ; (Semicolon), | (Pipe) and ↹ (Tab)
When changing the separator, press the apply button to refresh the preview window properly.
Space before separator
"name" , "city" , "position"
Annasusanna ,Amsterdam ,1
Ben , Berlin , 2
Space after separator
"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna, Amsterdam, 1
Ben , Berlin , 2
Trimming can be combined with Space before/after separator.
Trim leading whitespaces
"name","city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben ,Berlin ,2
Trim trailing whitespaces
"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben, Berlin, 2
Separator settings can be used in combination with Tabularize enabled, while trimming options are ignored completely.
"name ","city ","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben ,Berlin ,2
Trimming/spacing outside quotes
"name" ,"city" ,"position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben ,Berlin ,2
Leading whitespaces
" name"," city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam, 1
Ben, Berlin, 2
Trimming/spacing outside quotes & Leading whitespaces
"name", "city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam, 1
Ben, Berlin, 2
- File > Settings > Editor > Inspections > CSV
Inspections are an IDE feature that can be used to fix syntax errors. They are accessed via Alt+Enter when the cursor is at an erroneous position. The plugin provides three types of inspections:
- Surround with quotes Surrounds the current field with quotes and escapes already existing ones
- Add separator Adds a (missing) separator at the cursor position
- Add closing quote Adds a (missing) closing quote at the end of the document
- File > Settings > Editor > Intentions > CSV
Intentions are similar to inspections and provide a quick way to automatically adjust the document. They are accessed via Alt+Enter at any time. The shown intentions can vary depending on the cursor position within the document. The plugin provides six types of intentions:
- Quote All Surrounds all unquoted fields with quotes
- Quote Value Quotes the currently unquoted value at the cursor position
- Unquote All Unquotes all quoted fields if possible
- Unquote Value Unquotes the currently quoted value at the cursor position if possible
- Shift Column Left Shifts the column at cursor position to the left
- Shift Column Right Shifts the column at cursor position to the right
- View > Tool Windows > Structure
The structure view shows the first line of the currently opened CSV file as header. Expanding a header entry shows all entries in this column.
Install it from the Jetbrains plugin repository within your IDE (recommended):
- File > Settings > Plugins > Browse repositories... > Search 'CSV Plugin' > Category 'Editor'
You can also download the JAR package from the Jetbrains plugin repository or from GitHub Releases and add it manually to your plugins:
- File > Settings > Plugins > Install plugin from disk...
Contributions are welcome. Please check CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.
Besides source code contributions, feel free to open bug reports or just suggest new features here.
Why can't I choose the separator freely?
Having clearly defined symbols enables the syntax parser and language lexer to do its job properly. The code for those is generated during build time by using the Grammar-Kit. Adding a new kind of separator during development is fairly easy (please feel free to request a new commonly used one) in comparison to the implementation effort and usefulness of a freely defined separator.
JetBrains Plugin Repository Link: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/10037-csv-plugin