Command of the Dat: WORD$

[Walt Decker]

DATA "1 2 3 4 5"

DATA "1,2,3,4,5"

DATA "1,2,,3,,4,5"

DATA "1\ 2\ \ 3\ \ 4\ 5"

[Walt Decker]

Guess no one wants to tackle this.

A$ = "1 2 3 4 5"
PRINT "FIRST DATA "; A$
FOR I = 1 TO 5
 PRINT WORD$(A$, I)
NEXT I

A$ = "1,2,3,4,5"
PRINT "SECOND DATA "; A$
FOR I = 1 TO 5
 PRINT WORD$(A$, I, ",")
NEXT I

A$ = "1,2,,3,,4,5"
PRINT "THIRD DATA "; A$
FOR I = 1 TO 7
 PRINT WORD$(A$, I, ",") '<--- PROBLEM HERE
NEXT I

A$ = "1\2\\3\ \ 4\5"
PRINT "FOURTH DATA "; A$
FOR I = 1 TO 7
 PRINT WORD$(A$, I, "\") '<--- PROBLEM HERE
NEXT I

END


I know what the problem is. Anyone want to hazard a thought?

[cundo]

It reads whatever character is next to the delimiter. the problem is, with each delimiter, it expects string data afterwards .

[tenochtitlanuk]

See Wikipedia-
The CSV file format is not fully standardized. Separating fields with commas is the foundation, but commas in the data or embedded line breaks have to be handled specially. Some implementations disallow such content while others surround the field with quotation marks, which yet again creates the need for escaping if quotation marks are present in the data.
This will apply too to space-separators, reverse-slash separators, or w.h.y.
It is therefore up to the CODER to ensure that the data fields do not include the separator character- if you ignore that caution, beware!

As a heavy user of word$( I have never had cause to see the anomalous outputs!

[Walt Decker]

That is correct. The delimiter defines fields in a string. If there is one delimiter there are two fields, two delimiters produce three fields, etc., even if the field delimeters are adjacent producing an empty field. The user supplied delimeter should over-ride the default white-space delimiter; it does not. The coder should be aware of this quirk and supply at least a white-space if a field might be empty.

I use my own parsing routines to avoid this.

[tsh73]

As a heavy user of word$( I have never had cause to see the anomalous outputs!

I second that.

The coder should be aware of this quirk

That's in the docs, so yes, should be aware.
It is known from the help file on Word$ that double delimiter (empty word) return delimiter.

Notice the doubled up comma in the parseMe$ string. This is considered an empty entry and so in this case the delimiter will be returned: "," This is useful for detecting empty delimited fields in a string.

You added a space between\\; well that could be taken care of as well.

1 2 3 4 5
delim is > <
             1             1
             2             2
             3             3
             4             4
             5             5
1,2,3,4,5
delim is >,<
             1             1
             2             2
             3             3
             4             4
             5             5
1,2,,3,,4,5
delim is >,<
             1             1
             2             2
             3             3
             4             4
             5             5
1\ 2\ \ 3\ \ 4\ 5
delim is >\<
             1             1
             2              2
             3              3
             4              4
             5              5


DATA "1 2 3 4 5"
DATA "1,2,3,4,5"
DATA "1,2,,3,,4,5"
DATA "1\ 2\ \ 3\ \ 4\ 5"

for i = 1 to 4
   read a$
   print a$
   delim$=getDelim$(a$, "0123456789")
   print "delim is >"; delim$;"<"

   j = 0   'real word position
   k = 0   'non-empty word position
   while(1)
       j=j+1
       w$=word$(a$,j,delim$)
       if w$="" then exit while 'end
       if trim$(w$)="" or w$=delim$ then
           'skip empty word
       else
           k=k+1
           print ,k, w$
       end if
   wend
next

function getDelim$(a$, validChars$)
   getDelim$=""
   for i = 1 to len(a$)
       c$=mid$(a$,i,1)
       if not(instr(validChars$, c$)) then getDelim$=c$: exit function
   next
end function


[marshawn]

it is, in fact, the command of the decade over at the JB forum
justbasiccom.proboards.com/thread/932/keyword-decade-word

[tsh73]

I was so impressed by WORD$ commend that I recreated it in some other language
(was it VB?)
But I think I used it only once
because mostly I write LB (JB) programs.