# Csv import - encoding problem **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 3, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317 "2009-02-03T12:49:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bingobob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317/1 "2009-02-03T12:49:53Z")
I’m trying to load a CSV file into my rails app using a migration and FasterCSV and running into problems. I’ve had this working before when the CSV file has been saved out of excel, I’d like to do it with numbers now but I can’t quite get it to work as is. I can’t believe that excel does a better job with CSV than numbers (I don’t want to believe it)! The option I’m using in numbers to do the export, is Share -\> Export as CSV (set the encoding to UTF8, I could try with a different option in numbers if that might help). This seems like an encoding problem, is there a way I can handle this in the migration. Here’s the error message the migration spits out…. Unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n (line 2). * * * Be grateful for any help at all. * * * And here’s the migration file…. require ‘fastercsv’ class LoadData \< ActiveRecord::Migration def self.up count=0 FasterCSV.foreach("#{RAILS\_ROOT}/db/migrate/fixtures/fire.csv", :row\_sep =\> “\r”) do |row| forename,jobtitle,initials,surname,departmentname,jobfunction,companyname,addressline1,addressline2,addressline3,addressline4,town,postalcode,country,region,telephone,fax,email,web,persontelephone,personfax,personemail = row # name,url = row # Contact.create(:name =\> name, :url =\> url) Contact.create( ``` :forename => forename, :job_title => jobtitle, :initials => initials, :surname => surname, :department => departmentname, :job_role => jobfunction, :company_name => companyname, :address1 => addressline1, :address2 => addressline2, :address3 => addressline3, :address4 => addressline4, :town => town, :postcode => postalcode, :country => country, :region => region, :telephone => telephone, :fax => fax, :email => email, :web => web, :personal_phone => persontelephone, :personal_fax => personfax, :personal_email => personemail ) count += 1 # puts # puts count.to_s + " Name: " + row[1] # puts row.to_yaml # puts # puts row.inspect # puts row[1] # puts record.url end puts count.to_s + " records inserted." records = Contact.find(:all) # puts records.count ``` end def self.down puts “not doing anything” end end ---
**Author:** ![bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bingobob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317/2 "2009-02-03T16:08:33Z")
anyone help with this. I’m not sure what’s happening here. Maybe my data contains line feeds within the cells of data itself and that’s throwing it out? Another thought is that I could go into numbers and do a find replace on the carriage return character…just not sure? What does this mean? Unquoted fields do not allow \r or \n (line 2). ---
**Author:** ![bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bingobob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317/3 "2009-02-03T19:30:08Z")
This command did it for me, in the terminal… tr -d ‘\n’ \< edit\_unicode\_utf8.csv \> fire\_new.csv stripped out \n i suppose. ---
**Author:** ![bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bingobob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317/4 "2009-02-03T19:26:52Z")
put double quotes around any fields that contain a return character or a comma. Not sure if you have to escape return characters or not, but you’ll find out 🙂 Be sure to escape any double quotes On Feb 3, 2009 7:08am, bingo bob [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > within the cells of data itself and that’s throwing it out? > > –~–~---------~–~----~------------~-------~–~----~ > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups “Ruby on Rails: Talk” group. > > To post to this group, send email to removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > For more options, visit this group at > [http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en](http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en) ---
**Author:** ![bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@bingobob](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bingobob)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/csv-import-encoding-problem/159317/5 "2009-02-03T19:36:18Z")
Looks like Ruby has some support for writing csv files! [http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/csv/rdoc/classes/CSV/Writer.html](http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/csv/rdoc/classes/CSV/Writer.html) On Feb 3, 2009 10:30am, bingo bob [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups “Ruby on Rails: Talk” group. > > To post to this group, send email to removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > For more options, visit this group at > [http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en](http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en)