Render rfc4180 compilant CSV as table

Question

Is there a LaTeX package, which would import data from csv and honour the quotation escaping?

To be exact I mean one using the rules 1. - 7. of http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180#section-2

Neither pgfplotstable nor simplecsv seem to work - they both incorrectly parse the quoted comma as field separator.

column1, column2
value,"A quoted, value"
value2,A value
value3,"a ""value"""

Line 1 (of data) results in a pgfplotstable error: Table 'data.csv' appears to have too many column. Header, lines 2 and 3 render fine.

Desired output is:

column1  |  column2
---------+---------------------
value    |  A quoted, value
value2   |  A value
value3   |  a "value"

The only solution I found is manually enclosing the fields with {} brackets, but it's obviously a hassle.

EDIT: in the original file only the fields that contain commas and quotes are quoted

EDIT2: I understand it might be complicated to change the quotations to proper '' `` pairs; I'm not interested in this.

Answer 1

It seems that it is not implemented but can be done with some labor. I've modified the existing macros rather too quickly so Christian should know if I'm breaking anything here. The new setting can be used via col sep=double quotes. But it doesn't support another column with quotes as it is an ambiguous character for opening and closing.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}



\makeatletter
\pgfkeys{/pgfplots/table/col sep/double quotes/.code = {\def\pgfplotstableread@COLSEP@CASE{7}}}

{%
    \catcode`\ =10
    \catcode`\;=12
    \catcode`\:=12
    \gdef\pgfplotstableread@impl@prepare@DO{%
        \ifcase\pgfplotstableread@COLSEP@CASE\relax
            % col sep=space:
            \catcode`\ =10
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1 \pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=comma:
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@COMMA
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1,\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=semicolon:
            \catcode`\;=12
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@SEMICOLON
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1;\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=colon:
            \catcode`\:=12
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@COLON
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1:\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=brace:
            % allow multi line cells:
            \endlinechar=\pgfplotstableread@oldendlinechar\relax
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@BRACE
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=tab:
            \catcode`\^^I=12
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@TAB
            \long\edef\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\noexpand\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1\pgfplotstableread@tab\noexpand\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep=&:
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@AMPERSAND
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1&\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \or
            % col sep="
            \let\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT=\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@DOUBLEQUOTES
            \long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@DO@##1{\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE##1\pgfplotstable@EOI}%
        \fi
    }%
}%

\long\def\pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@DOUBLEQUOTES#1"{%
    \pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE@NEXT@{#1}%
    \pgfplotstableread@impl@ITERATE
}%

\makeatother


\begin{document}

\pgfplotstableread[col sep=double quotes]{
A,"the comma , and some    space,"
B," followed by another awkward."
}\mytable


\pgfplotstabletypeset[string type]{\mytable}

\end{document}

I didn't remove the commas because I am not sure if you need them or not. You can also introduce the quotes again but if that's going to be typeset it's better to use csquotes package or at least `` ... " pairs to render the opening quotes properly.