feat: added optional delimiters

[HKskn]

I think it needs optional delimiters.

[coveralls]

Pull Request Test Coverage Report for Build 40

• 5 of 5 (100.0%) changed or added relevant lines in 4 files are covered.
• No unchanged relevant lines lost coverage.
• Overall coverage remained the same at 100.0%

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Totals
Change from base Build 37:	0.0%
Covered Lines:	78
Relevant Lines:	78

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💛 - Coveralls

[ryu1kn]

Hi @HKskn , thank you for taking time to contribute to the project! but I've got a different idea on supporting other delimiters. The current FieldStringifier class is actually specific to CSV and respects RFC4180; so I wouldn't use the same logic if I use other characters for a delimiter.

I've started thinking to support TSV (even this library is named csv-writer) after I've got some requests. Do you have some specific delimiters you want to use? Do you mind sharing your context/use-case?

[HKskn]

Hi @ryu1kn, you are right. In my case, csv files formatted with delimiter ',' can't fit columns correctly on excel. It needs to use delimiter ';'. I think restricting delimiters is not good, there can be another delimiters. Thanks.

[ryu1kn]

Do you mean the CSV file generated by csv-writer doesn't look right on Excel? That sounds like the CSV is not compatible with the format Excel is expecting. Do you mind sharing the simple code snipets and sample data that reproduce the CSV along with the expected results (in the form of screenshots/excel file/...) so that I can have a closer look? Also can you let me know the OS and node versions?

It's also interesting that if you use ; in CSV file as a delimiter then Excel can parse it correctly, if we use ; it's not Comma Separated Value anymore...

[ryu1kn]

It's also interesting that if you use ; in CSV file as a delimiter then Excel can parse it correctly, if we use ; it's not Comma Separated Value anymore...

Ok, I found that, on Windows, depending on the "Regional and Language Options" settings, Excel assumes different characters for the field delimiter...

• How to open semicolon delimited CSV-files in US-version of Excel - StackExchange
• CSV with comma or semicolon? - StackOverflow

Seems we do need to support ; as a delimiter. Now I need to find what is the escaping rule for the field value when ; is used as a separator.

[ryu1kn]

Now I need to find what is the escaping rule for the field value when ; is used as a separator.

As far as i can see from a quick play around with Excel on windows with ; as a list separator, passing a field delimiter to FieldStringifier should do the job. But I want to limit the delimiter to only either comma or semicolon because, for example, TAB character as a delimiter requires different stringifying rules.

So I’m going to merge your PR and continue work on it before i release the next version.

[ryu1kn]

Merged! I'll let you know once I release the new version 👍

[ryu1kn]

Released as v1.1.0. Thank you again for your contribution!!