[thelist] Stupid Hack in Winblowz for CSV Delimiters
Max Schwanekamp
lists at neptunewebworks.com
Thu Mar 1 11:42:59 CST 2007
Chris Dorer wrote:
> Don't tell me this, seriously, Joel ;).
> I fumbled with the 'text to columns' under 'data' for 3 hours to no avail.
> I was trying to use the pipe '|' as a delimiter
>
>> also, the 'text to columns' under 'data' allows you to choose a
>> delimiter on the fly, as it always has. not sure what Chris was trying
>> to accomplish, but it seems like there might have been an easier way.
FWIW, OpenOffice --on Windows too!-- allows setting one or more
delimiters when opening any CSV (as well as the encapsulating
character). If you can't figure it out in MS Office, often OOo is a
good backup.
Kinda OT...
<tip type="Checking string type without Regular Expressions in PHP"
author="Max Schwanekamp">
Regular expressions are the best, most powerful, most stupendous thing
ever invented since yeasted bread. But in PHP (and most elsewhere)
they're relatively resource-intensive, especially the popular PCRE regex
functions. When you're just trying to detect for say, a valid
alphanumeric form entry, you can use the Character Type (ctype_*)
functions. These use a native C library, and are significantly faster
than preg_*, eregi_* and even some str_* functions.
http://us2.php.net/ctype
http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-5899580.html
</tip>
--
Max Schwanekamp
NeptuneWebworks.com
541-255-2171
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