CSV File: Remove quotes from the file.

Question

Hello Everyone, 
 
 I am converting HTML to CSV using this process nodes and it's working fine. Although I can export data store entity to CSV- but there is different requirement, so I am not using this approach. Please see below screenshot.

Requirement: When I open that CSV file in Notepad++ I see this: 
 
 I need to remove these quotes in a file. How can I achieve this? Thanks

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Can you go a bit more in depth into your use case / what you're hoping to accomplish? 
 To clarify, CSV files use quotes as a very important piece of their formatting; if you simply stripped all quotes out, then you'd likely end up with an otherwise hard-to-use blob of plaintext. Maybe this is what you *really want*, but I'm doubtful that it's that simple.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Well, you can always read the CSV file into Appian then use the Text from Template node to construct a brand new file in whatever format you want, even if it's just the same values exported as-is with just commas separating them and no additional formatting.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Given that you seem to want a text file as an output, then yes, this is probably the most direct approach.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

manjit.1486 said: How and where can I provide that new document link? 
 I'm not really sure I understand the problem here. If you create a separate TXT file based on the contents of the CSV (just with double-quotes replaced with null), you can show that (new) document in any location or method you wish.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Then why would you even need the extra TXT file?

Mike Schmitt · Answer

You won't be able to make any edits to the original CSV file in Appian (and if you removed the quotes somehow, it would no longer *actually* be a "CSV" file, since the quotes are a required part of the parsing). If you're hoping to ONLY show the end user the result with the quotes stripped, you would probably be able to have the "generate CSV" process also take the resulting CSV, read the information in as text, strip double quotes, dump the results back into a (new) TXT file, then **only** show that on the user's interface. If the user was expecting a "CSV" though that isn't what they'll be getting anymore, so I would consider renaming the "generate CSV" button as well while making these other changes. 
 Note: I'm fuzzy on how easy / possible it is to read data as text from a CSV file, but i'm pretty sure that after you have the resulting information, it'll be pretty simple to use the "text from template" smart service and drop the resulting rows of text into a new text file. This can be displayed on-form pretty easily (i'm not sure what you mean by "editor" though).

Mike Schmitt · Answer

If you remove the quotes, it's not a CSV file anymore. If someone is telling you otherwise, you should escalate this requirement high enough to get someone who understands the technical details, because this makes very little sense as-is.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

You can TRY to put in the full output file name like "myExport.CSV", but Appian does not always give THAT much control over file extensions (and no direct means by which to CHANGE the extension of an existing file, that I know of). However I feel I need to point out one more time that the resulting file you're creating is NOT A CSV FILE any more , because removing the quotes breaks all CSV file conventions.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

in many (but not all) document generation smart services, one of the input parameters will be something like "generated file name", and govern what the actual filename is for the generated doc. The thing in your screenshot will be a reference to the generated doc ID (to be saved into a "document type" pv, as a reference to the created document itself), so not the same thing. 
 In the "text from template" node, it's in the Setup (highlighted). I'm unclear whether providing a name (dot) extension here will allow you to override the default ".txt" extension (i'd guess no, but you can still try and see what happens).

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Sorry, yes now that you mention it, I did know that would be a workable alternative: namely, to create a (text) template that's actually a filename with ".csv" extension. Appian doesn't enforce the extension (and keeps the original) despite it being "text from template". 
 I reiterate my original warning that the file you're generating here is no longer an actual CSV file (despite the extension you're keeping), since the quoted fields are a part of the CSV file format for parsing sake. If you're lucky the resulting file might still parse correctly by a CSV reader.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

AFAIK those commas indicate the presence of columns (exported to the CSV) that didn't have any data in them. You could always just pass the text through some function that removes any comma(s) at the end of a line of text... but it might be more worth your time investingating why they're appearing in the first place.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

it seems like it's adding a whole extra set of blanks at the end (along with the hardcoded commas you have separating them), though the exact cause is a little hard to tell without seeing an example value for "pv!empDetails".