Output JSON to CSV adds unwanted quotes

That one really baffles me...

Is that a bug or a feature of the CSV Output tool?

I managed to generate a properly formatted JSON file, that I am exporting to CSV to be used outside of Alteryx, and for some reason I cannto comrehend, the OUtput process is adding quotes to my already quoted fileds?

Alteryx is showing in the display window data as it should be:

Yet, opening the actual CSV output, every field has been double double quoted!!

And same thing happens if I remove option 3 in the output: Delimiters set to blank...

I don't understand why Alteryx displays it correctly and outputs it wrong? Workflow v11.4 is attached...

Thanks in advance !

Frederic

Test Export CSV.yxmd

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Parse

Accepted answers

danilang

hi @fpinchon

Indeed you can't win. Like I mentioned in the last line of my post, you can't do it directly. You have to build the line as a single field, including the comma and output just that one field

Something like this will output the format you're looking for. Of course, since it doesn't conform to the CSV standard, you'll need a custom routine to parse it.

Dan

Test Export CSV.yxmd

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estherb47

Hi @fpinchon

So I tried this out, and when I open the csv with Excel, it renders perfectly, with just one set of quote marks.

But, when I open it with Notepad, I find the same double double quotes as you do. If I read that outputted file back into Alteryx, the extra quote marks disappear.

It seems to be a quirk of CSV's (although this article relates to Excel, it explains things https://superuser.com/questions/349882/how-to-avoid-double-quotes-when-saving-excel-file-as-unicode)

Are you able to save into a different file type?

Cheers!

Esther

fpinchon

@estherb47

That's my experience as well, Excel format does not bug that way, and the CSV looks correct in Alteryx, but notepad shows the double double.

When I try to inject that CSV through API, the receiving endpoint sees the double double as well, alas...

To your point of using another format, well I need a format which will accept cells over 256 characters to accommodate JSON Strings, which is not the case of Excel... Any recommendation?

cmcclellan

You need to do a bit more to properly parse the JSON to CSV though. Because you haven't really created fields for the CSV file (yet)

Try this (attached)

Test Export CSV CM.yxmd

fpinchon

I like how you are thinking, but I am trying to fix the last step of a workflow that created that JSON file, from a table, so I don't want to parse it into a table again...

The larger workflow is meant to prepare a table to be injected to an API, and thus needs to be JSON formatted into a target wide cell > 256 characters...

And APIs don't like double doubles

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