[New Plugin] CSV Lint

Bas de Reuver

@Thomas-McArthur That does sound like an serious issue, however I can’t reproduce what you’re describing.

I generated a test file with many columns (using generate_data99.py script) and then turning Word wrap on and off while switching between csv/non-csv tabs.

Maybe it has to do with the file encoding, does it also still happen when you first convert the file to a different encoding like ANSI or UTF8 and then save, and then try again? Or possibly it has to do with the session.xml file, does it still happen when you delete/rename your recent %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\session.xml file and then re-open Notepad++? If it still happens, could you send me an e-mail with your ? > Debug info content?

Bas de Reuver

The CSV Lint plug-in was updated to v0.4.6.4 yesterday. The biggest new features are:

Syntax highlighting improvement for Windows set to non-western codepage (Chinese, Korean etc.)
Skip Lines / Comment Character for comment lines
Dialogs have Dark mode support (preliminary)
Improved support for quoted string
Allow user to delete column
Split on character, new option split on Nth occurrence
Various bug fixes

The skiplines and comment lines feature:
CSV Lint skiplines and comment lines feature

And improved support for syntax highlighting when set to non-western codepage
CSV Lint non-wester codepage

I made the release, despite some reporting the new version crashing, because I wasn’t able to reproduce the issue (also see here and here).

If anyone can reproduce the plugin crashing on the latest Notepad++ version, or a possible cause, please let me know.

Thomas McArthur

@Bas-de-Reuver NP++ v8.5.2 64bit with CSV Lint v0.4.6.3 installed does not show any plugin updates.

PeterJones

@Thomas-McArthur said in [New Plugin] CSV Lint:

NP++ v8.5.2 64bit with CSV Lint v0.4.6.3 installed does not show any plugin updates.

Of course it doesn’t. Notepad++'s plugin list is only updated on a new release of Notepad++, and Notepad++ v8.5.2 came out on April 6, essentially a month before CSV Lint’s 0.4.6.4 update on May 2. If a plugin is released between Notepad++ versions and you want that updated plugin, you have to manually update the plugin.

Thomas McArthur

@Bas-de-Reuver I found the cause of the crash: it’s the Multi-Line setting for the Tab Bar. When that is enabled, and the tabs wrap to 2+ lines, activating a CSV tab a 2nd time crashes NP++.

Enable multi-line, and only have one line of tabs - no crash.
Un-maximize the window, drag it small enough to create 2+ rows of tabs - activating a CSV tab a 2nd time crashes NP++.

This crash even happens on a fresh download of NP++ v8.5.2 portable.

rdipardo

@Thomas-McArthur, I can’t make it crash for me, but it could simply be I don’t understand your instructions.

Does “Multi-Line” mean that long lines are wrapped, i.e. the option at View > Word wrap has a ✅ beside it?
Exactly how many different files are open at the same time? Is there a CSV file, and one more file of a different type? Or is the same CSV file open in multiple views, i.e., did you go to View > Move/Clone Current Document and then click Move/Clone to Other View?

Snabel42

@rdipardo I think this is checked: Settings / General / Tab Bar / Multi-line

Then make sure the window is narrow enough where the Tab bar has more than one line.

edit I can not replicate in version 0.4.6.4 64-bit

Chr Pqe

This plugin is a gamechanger. There are few bugs here and there nevertheless. For example,

it will not properly detect documents in the second NPP pane.
it seems to crash NPP a lot with CSV files using a lot of white or blank lines (maybe 50-100+ white/blank/tab lines at random positions)

I understand that this not a CSV or spreadsheet editor or a data analysis plugin, but some obvious features are missing :

Change column position - add a simple menu item or button (in the CSV Lint window) to swap columns of the CSV
Sort by this column - this is an obvious feature that is missing, nevertheless for this one, if the first feature is implemented (change column position), I could simply swap the needed column to the first one then use NPP sort and it should do the same thing.

I don’t think “changing column position” should be hard to integrate, since every column is already detected by a color (thus position).

Also, the reason it is a bit troublesome to not have this feature, is that a lot of times CSV columns are not in the correct position to visualize and understand the data, which forces to open Excel or some spreadsheet just to modify the position of the column and go back to NPP.

Chr Pqe

@artyb55 In your case for example, having a “change column position” would be useful aka you insert your column at the begening, then swap/change position of this newly edited column at the place you want

Coises

@Chr-Pqe said in [New Plugin] CSV Lint:

I understand that this not a CSV or spreadsheet editor or a data analysis plugin, but some obvious features are missing :

Change column position - add a simple menu item or button (in the CSV Lint window) to swap columns of the CSV

Sort by this column - this is an obvious feature that is missing, nevertheless for this one, if the first feature is implemented (change column position), I could simply swap the needed column to the first one then use NPP sort and it should do the same thing.

It is possible that a plugin I’m currently developing, Columns++, would help you, though there are some significant caveats:

It’s in alpha stage right now. I can’t promise it won’t crash Notepad++, so it’s important to keep work safe.
You would need to use its conversion functions to convert separated values to tabbed display, then convert back if you need to save the document in its original form. Depending on the details of your file, some care with the conversion options may be necessary if you need it to “round trip” unchanged except where you’ve made edits.
You would need to enable its Elastic tabstops feature to line up the columns; then you could use ordinary rectangular selections to move columns by cutting and pasting (admittedly, still a somewhat clumsy operation), and there are sort commands in the plugin that work with tabbed documents. Unfortunately, performance of Elastic tabstops is quite dependent on file size; e.g., I can edit a file with 1300 lines and 12 tabs per line and rarely notice any impact, but with 19,000 lines and 50 tabs per line, some operations can freeze for half a minute or more.

There’s a thread over here about it, so this one doesn’t get cluttered, if you have questions, comments or reports.

Bas de Reuver

@Chr-Pqe Thanks, nice to hear you like the plugin. 👍 Are there any functions of the plug-in that are especially helpful? I’d like to know because I can’t see which functions are most used or which aren’t used at all.

A sort function was in fact already added a while ago in v0.4.6, also see comment of 9 november 2022 in this thread, which version of the plug-in do you have installed? When you open the CSV Lint docking window Plugins > CSV Lint > CSV Lint window there should be a Sort button. It even sorts date/float/integer columns correctly according to their values.

And I agree, being able to change the column order would be a nice feature to have.

Bas de Reuver

@Chr-Pqe You say the plugin sometimes crashes, does that happen just when opening a csv file or when you do Reformat or something like that?

At the moment there is a known bug with the transparant cursor line, see issue #67 thanks to @Thomas-McArthur for posting it.

Does it still crash when you set the CSV Lint setting TransparantCursor to false?

Bas de Reuver

@Alan-Kilborn @rdipardo If possible, could you take a look at this issue #67 ? I’m 100% certain that this has to do with these two lines i.e. when I disabled them then it doesn’t crash anymore. However at the moment I can’t figure out why that is.

Btw the lines were introduced in this commit and also see this post

Alan Kilborn

@Bas-de-Reuver

It appears that @rdipardo had some thoughts on it, HERE.

Bas de Reuver

The CSV Lint plug-in was updated to v0.4.6.5. The biggest new feature is enumeration (coded values) meaning the plug-in now also tries to detect column with coded values. The big advantage is that you can now also check if a coded column contains invalid values, so values outside of the provided codelist. Other than that it’s mostly minor updates and bugfixes

Support for enum/coded values
Analyse Data Report, show correct date range
Fix rare crashing situation due to transparent cursor line setting
Syntax highlighting fix for special separator character
Convert to SQL, PostgreSQL syntax improvements, support enum and table comment
Generate Python/R script, support enum
Generate W3C CSV Schema JSON various fixes and improvements
Settings dialog, hide userpref dialog values
Various updates and bugfixes

antoineDion

@Bas-de-Reuver said in [New Plugin] CSV Lint:

Allow user to delete column

I installed version 0.4.6.5 and I can’t find how to delete a column.

Bas de Reuver

@antoineDion said in [New Plugin] CSV Lint:

@Bas-de-Reuver said in [New Plugin] CSV Lint:
I installed version 0.4.6.5 and I can’t find how to delete a column.

It’s a bit of a hidden feature, located at an unintuitive menu option in the plugin. You can go to “Add column” (this is the unintuitive part) and then select the original column you want to remove, then select none of the options by right-clicking (this possibility was added in 0.4.6.5) and then check the “Remove original column” checkbox.

Also see the documentation here

Note that you can also right-click the radio buttons to deselect them. By not selecting any of the options and checking the “Remove original column” you can press OK to simply remove the selected original column.

Sebastijan Stanivuk

I have this issue when I try to Validate csv “is not a valid enumeration member” what does it mean?

** error line 6: Column 5 value "Tall car with medium long brown hood. Maybe English, special about it was it had windows like the bottom of Coca-Cola. Nice car, not very cute. Taller then my." is not a valid enumeration member,

Mark Olson

@Sebastijan-Stanivuk
X is not a valid enumeration member means that CSVLint thought that a certain column of the CSV would contain only certain values, but X was not one of those values.

nousername1

Hi
I work often with Open Data who are formatted sshhttt often. Is there some good how to to make the best out of the Plugin?
Is there some methode to Automatise a Script to even fine tune some Parameter afterwarts and play them when a new File comeout again and again…?
Thanks