Does CsvHelper support carriage returns in string fields? about csvhelper

[JoshClose]

Yes. CsvHelper follows RFC 4180. It supports line ending of \r\n, \r, and \n.

[tonidef]

@JoshClose , I'm finding my csv is treating carriage returns as new rows of data. Any suggestions on how to address this?

[JoshClose]

Are you saying CsvReader reading it improperly? Or CsvWriter is writing it improperly? Or something else?

[tonidef]

I'm using CsvWriter with a StringWriter.

[JoshClose]

If you're opening it up in a text editor, the formatting is going to be as you'd expect. Take a look over RFC 4180; it's a short read. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180

If a field has a carriage return in it \r\n, then the field must be escaped by putting quotes around it "1\r\n2". The data you have is showing the field with the break has quotes around it.

Opening up in a text editor is going to format it as text, so the breaks will break. Try opening it up in Excel and you'll probably see it more as you're expecting.

[tonidef]

I've found opening directly in Excel won't read special characters likes trademarks. I have to import the data and select a file origin for UTF-8. On import, it then reads the carriage returns as new lines. I can't determine a resolution to address both issues.

[JoshClose]

What is your goal? It looks like the data is being written correctly based on RFC 4180 (from what I can see). What needs to happen to the data after it's in CSV format?

[tonidef]

It needs to be accessed in Excel, then is merged with other data by my user who then imports all the data into cvent...for seminar registrations.

[JoshClose]

It should open in Excel fine. You may have to set some options in Excel when opening or importing. You may need to specify a specific encoding too for all I know. Obviously, use the encoding that you used to write the CSV. CsvHelper doesn't do anything with encodings; it just uses the TextWriter you give it.

[JoshClose]

I'm not on a computer that I'm able to test anything out unfortunately. If you need some help, you can email me a sample text file, and I can give it a try with Excel tonight some time.

[tonidef]

Thanks so much! Sending email now.