Too many fields in row x when reading in a .csv file

[AndrewL]

These methods should work in most versions of Alteryx. 

One of the most common issues we see from clients trying to read in a .csv file is that they are receiving an error starting “Too many fields in row x”, and because of this Alteryx can’t read in the file.

There are a couple of different ways you can resolve this error.

First, in the Input Data tool, you can tell Alteryx to treat read errors as warnings to allow the file to be read in.

This will change the Error to a Warning so that Alteryx can read in the file so you can investigate.

The other method is to read the file in with no delimiter. You can do this by changing the delimiter in the Input Data tool to \0.

Once you have your data parsed back out into its fields, you can use the Dynamic Rename tool to correct your field names, a select tool to remove the original field, and a simple Trim() function to remove the extra delimiter from your data.

 

This process is illustrated in the attached workflow, created in version 10.1.

[aeulusan]

Thanks for sharing this. However I think the issue many of us are facing is that we have that unncessery comma not in the last field but let's say in the 2nd column. Thus it separates the columns incorrectly and your solution would only work for a case where the comma is only at the last column

[blitz45]

@AndrewL how would you fix the issue if we are using the Directory tool instead of the Input Data tool?