java - How to determine the delimiter in CSV file

Question

I have a scenario at which i have to parse CSV files from different sources, the parsing code is very simple and straightforward.

        String csvFile = "/Users/csv/country.csv";
        String line = "";
        String cvsSplitBy = ",";
        try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(csvFile))) {
            while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
                // use comma as separator
                String[] country = line.split(cvsSplitBy);
                System.out.println("Country [code= " + country[4] + " , name=" + country[5] + "]");
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

my problem come from the CSV delimiter character, i have many different formats, some time it is a , sometimes it is a ;

is there is any way to determine the delimiter character before parsing the file

Answer 1

univocity-parsers supports automatic detection of the delimiter (also line endings and quotes). Just use it instead of fighting with your code:

CsvParserSettings settings = new CsvParserSettings();
settings.detectFormatAutomatically();

CsvParser parser = new CsvParser(settings);
List<String[]> rows = parser.parseAll(new File("/path/to/your.csv"));

// if you want to see what it detected
CsvFormat format = parser.getDetectedFormat();

Disclaimer: I'm the author of this library and I made sure all sorts of corner cases are covered. It's open source and free (Apache 2.0 license)

Hope this helps.