The Portable Freeware Collection Forums

I just uploaded my brand new freeware CSV Buddy. Please give it a try and tell us if "This app rocks!"

CSV Buddy helps you make your CSV files ready to be imported by a variety of software. You can load files with all sort of field delimiters (comma, tad, semi-colon, etc.) and encapsulators (double/single-quotes or any other character). Convert line breaks in data field making your file XL ready. Rename/reorder fields, edit records, save with any delimiters and export to fixed-width, HTML templates or XML formats. Freeware.

Thanks for posting, but please use the format we've got for other entries. Your current entry format uses what looks like an article rather than a quick, clear description of the software and what it does. Happy to help you out with that if you need.

Sure. Sorry,this is my first submission here.

App name: CSV Buddy
Latest version: v0.8.1
Tagline: a Swiss knife for CSV files

Website: http://www.jeanlalonde.ca/csvbuddy
Portable freeware link: http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2540

Download link: http://www.jeanlalonde.ca/ahk/csvbuddy/csvbuddy.zip
Run the .EXE file from this folder (choose the 32-bits or 64-bits version depending on your system). Make sure it will run with read/write access to this folder.

System Requirements: WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8

Portable: CSV Buddy only writes settings to Application folder and, of course, it creates files at user's request in the folder selected by the user.

Unicode support: Yes, in 64-bits version.

Long description:

Even if the CSV file format is a widely accepted standard, it is still found in multiple flavors. In some implementations, fields are separated by comma. Others are delimited with tab, semi-colon or a variety of characters depending on the OS. Most CSV file records stand on one line. However, some programs export multi-line data with line breaks inside fields (try to load in Excel a CSV export from Outlook or Gmail contacts with multi-line notes text fields). Many programs will have a hard time importing these various variations of the CSV format.

The freeware CSV Buddy helps you make your CSV files ready to be imported by a variety of software. Load files with all sorts of field delimiters (auto-detection of comma, tab, semi-colon, etc.). Field containing delimiters or line breaks can be embedded in various encapsulators (double-quotes, single-quotes, pipes or any character). Get field names from the file's header (first line) or set your own column titles. Load data with line-breaks.

Rename, select or reorder fields. In a grid, edit or delete records. Sort them on alphabetical or numeric values (integer or float). Save all or selected rows to a new file using any delimiters, with header or not. Replace line breaks in data fields with a marker to make your file ready to load in software (like MS-Excel) that can only load single-line fields.

Export your data to fixed-width files with specific width for each field, truncating data or padding it with spaces. Export to HTML using your own template with markers to insert your data fields in the web page. Also export to XML standard format.

CSV Buddy can load files having up to 200 fields (columns) and cells with up to 8191 characters. With the 32-bits version, file loading is limited by available physical memory. Tests were successful with files over 100 MB. With the 64-bits version, there is no limitation to file size thanks to virtual RAM. However, loading and saving time will increase as files get huge (in the hundreds of megs).

@webfork: I realize I misunderstood you. If you let me edit the submission entry, I'll put a description in a bullet point format. Isa there a max lenght? I have short (500 chars) and long (2000 chars) versions.

@ JnLlnd:

webfork wrote:Thanks for posting, but please use the format we've got for other entries. Your current entry format uses what looks like an article rather than a quick, clear description of the software and what it does. Happy to help you out with that if you need.

Done ... hope you like it

Checker wrote:Done ... hope you like it

Yes. Thank you for the update and follow-up, Checker and webfork.

I got my first Like, thanks to tproli ! BTW, how many points are required to get a submission public?

JnLlnd wrote:BTW, how many points are required to get a submission public?

Ten.

SYSTEM wrote:Ten.

So, thanks to NickRR1 and avi-aryanR2, only two missing and CSV Buddy comes out of the closet

Just a note about an update to this program here:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... =8&t=20921

Have a good day!

Hello!

CSVBuddy has been updated to version 1.2.

More details here: http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/ ... =8&t=21379

Were you looking for feedback on this program?

Also, what's the license? Standard copyright?

webfork wrote:Were you looking for feedback on this program?

Of course, I do. This being said, CSV Buddy is not my main project at this time and I have time only for relatively small improvements. Eventually, with the experience I gained over the last two years working with the AHK scripting language, I would completely rework the user interface. But this is not for the short term.

webfork wrote:Also, what's the license? Standard copyright?

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

JnLlnd wrote:

webfork wrote:Were you looking for feedback on this program?

Of course, I do. This being said, CSV Buddy is not my main project at this time and I have time only for relatively small improvements. Eventually, with the experience I gained over the last two years working with the AHK scripting language, I would completely rework the user interface. But this is not for the short term.

Cool, I'll try to put something together in the months ahead as I'm anticipating working with CSV files a lot.

JnLlnd wrote:

webfork wrote:Also, what's the license? Standard copyright?

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software ...

I am not a lawyer and I'm still learning but if possible, I'd like to I strongly recommend two things with whatever license:

1. Going with a standard license
   
   This is because non-standard licenses in some environments aren't allowed. Some big or security/legal companies need to have any software carefully vetted by legal and will have green-lit some standard licenses but will just refuse a one-off like CSV Buddy. I'd recommend Apache 2.0 or LGPL as both check off on these points, but I'm sure there are other licenses that would work just as well.
2. Including some notice or mention of Patents and a Disclaimer of warranty
   
   To help avoid any unpleasant legal nonsense action taken against you.

webfork wrote:I'd recommend Apache 2.0 or LGPL as both check off on these points, but I'm sure there are other licenses that would work just as well.

I took your advice and changed to the Apache licence that includes more or less what I wanted to say in better (and less) words. I should do the same for Quick Access Popup.

webfork wrote:Cool, I'll try to put something together in the months ahead as I'm anticipating working with CSV files a lot.

Looking forward for your input

I'm thinking of a complete interface redraw. A user showed me an interesting example (PSV Edit, a pipe delimited file editor, dated 2002). This could be a project for the next months after I'll consider I'm almost finished with Quick Access Popup.

Thanks you webfork!

JnLlnd wrote:I took your advice and changed to the Apache licence that includes more or less what I wanted to say in better (and less) words. I should do the same for Quick Access Popup.

Ah great news. Thanks.

webfork wrote:Cool, I'll try to put something together in the months ahead as I'm anticipating working with CSV files a lot.

Looking forward for your input

I'm thinking of a complete interface redraw. A user showed me an interesting example (PSV Edit, a pipe delimited file editor, dated 2002). This could be a project for the next months after I'll consider I'm almost finished with Quick Access Popup.

Sounds good. I have been blown away again and again with the number of tools and programs that still use CSV and show no sign of switching over. Even those in use by some huge companies.

Hopefully I'll have some suggestions in the weeks and months ahead as I dig through my current project, which is one of those tools.