xml or csv? when it comes to importing data...

[CC-Jacques]

I need to import some dynamic values.  I was curious to know if xml or csv was better suited with javascript...  has anyone had a better experience with either of the formats?  Thanks again,

- Jacques

[xbytor2 · Accepted solution]

If you're familiar at all with XML and your data has any complexity, use XML.

If the data is simply a table of values, use CSV.

If the data is an arbitrary set of key/value pairs, I prefer to use .ini files. They are easy to read/write in JS and by humans.

-X

[CC-Jacques]

Thanks, managed to get it working using csv.

[xbytor2]

FWIW, here's some code from stdlib.js for parsing lines in a CSV file. This correctly handles quoted fields (with embedded commas) and just about everything else that I've been able to throw at it. Some of the code (the 'while (true)' loop, in particular) is there because I couldn't get the master RegExp expression quite right and had to handle some cases manually.

  var rexStr = '([^",]+)|"((?:[^"]|"")*)"|^,';
  var rexp = new RegExp(rexStr);
  function parseCSVLine(line) {
    var ch = ',';
    var parts = [];
    var res;
    while (line.length && (res = line.match(rexp)) != null) {
      if (res[1] || res[2]) {
        if (res[1]) {
          parts.push(res[1]);
        } else {
          parts.push(res[2].replace(/""/g, '"'));
        }
        line = line.slice(res[0].length + res.index);
        if (line[0] == ch) {
          line = line.slice(1);
        }
      } else {
        while (true) {
          if (line[0] == ch) {
            parts.push('');
            line = line.slice(1);
            continue;
          }
          if (line.startsWith('""')) {
            parts.push('');
            line = line.slice(2);
            if (line[0] == ch) {
              line = line.slice(1);
            }
            continue;
          }
          break;
        }
      }
    }
    return parts;
  }