Compatible with IntelliJ IDEA PhpStorm WebStorm PyCharm RubyMine AppCode CLion Gogland DataGrip Rider MPS Android Studio - 2016.3.2 and newer

This plugin introduces CSV (Comma-Separated Values) as a language to Jetbrains IDE with a syntax definition, structured language elements and associated file types (.csv/.tsv). This enables default editor features like syntax validation, highlighting and inspections for CSV files.

• CSV/TSV file detection
• syntax validation
• syntax highlighting (configurable)
• content formatting (configurable)
• quick fix inspections
• intentions (Alt+Enter), e.g. Quote/Unquote (all), Shift Column Left/Right
• structure view (header-entry layout)
• support for ',', ';', '|' and '↹' as value separator

The CSV syntax parser follows the standard defined in IETF 4180 but tolerates leading and trailing whitespaces of escaped text and accepts basically every literal as text data. This results in a less restrictive checks and contributes to the flexibility of this format. The goal of the plugin is to support editing files in CSV format, not introducing new hurdles.

Being strict, the following CSV snippet is actually incorrect cause of the leading whitespaces. However, it is accepted by the plugins syntax parser implementation:

"firstName", "lastName", "birthday"

Besides the mentioned diversion from the standard definition, syntax errors will be detected and can be inspected. Please note that if a document is syntactically incorrect, other features like code formatting or the structure view can not function properly.

The different symbols of a CSV document, namely the separator (comma), the quotes, the escaped literals and the text elements itself, are highlighted by a coloring scheme that can be customized:

• File > Settings > Editor > Color Scheme > CSV

Preset colors are based on Jetbrains IDE defaults and support the different UI themes.

CSV files provide a high degree of flexibility and can be used universally for all kind of data. This led to a variety of CSV derivatives like semicolon or pipe separated values, which share the common format but make use of a different separator.

The plugin supports project specific separator setting. New separators can be added fairly easy in the parser definition of the source code.

Tab (↹) can be explicitly set as a separator for CSV files. Additionally the file type TSV was introduced as a kind of CSV language. For TSV files the same formatter and code style settings are applied as for CSV itself, but the separator is considered to be a tab. All functionality that is available for plain CSV files (inspections, intentions, structure view, etc.) can be used for TSV as well.

• File > Settings > Editor > Code Style > CSV

Formatting CSV is tricky: On one hand it is easy cause the language has only four different symbols and is generally easy to handle. On the other hand, formatting elements like whitespaces and tabs do have a meaning in CSV. However, in reality when parsing CSV, the leading and trailing whitespaces are quite often ignored or trimmed. Formatting can be completely disabled if no option is selected at all at the settings screen.

The formatting is applied to CSV documents as normal code formatting:

• Code > Reformat code (Ctrl+Alt+L)

The formatting examples are based on the following CSV snippet as input:

"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
  Ben  ,  Berlin  , 2

The following separators are currently supported: , (Comma), ; (Semicolon), | (Pipe) and ↹ (Tab)

When changing the separator, press the apply button to refresh the preview window properly.

Space before separator

"name" , "city" , "position"
Annasusanna ,Amsterdam ,1
  Ben ,  Berlin , 2

Space after separator

"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna, Amsterdam, 1
  Ben  , Berlin  , 2

Trimming can be combined with Space before/after separator.

Trim leading whitespaces

"name","city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben  ,Berlin  ,2

Trim trailing whitespaces

"name", "city", "position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
  Ben,  Berlin, 2

Separator settings can be used in combination with Tabularize enabled, while trimming options are ignored completely.

"name     ","city   ","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben        ,Berlin   ,2

Trimming/spacing outside quotes

"name"     ,"city"   ,"position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,1
Ben        ,Berlin   ,2

Leading whitespaces

"     name","   city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,         1
        Ben,   Berlin,         2

Trimming/spacing outside quotes & Leading whitespaces

     "name",   "city","position"
Annasusanna,Amsterdam,         1
        Ben,   Berlin,         2

• File > Settings > Editor > Inspections > CSV

Inspections are an IDE feature that can be used to fix syntax errors. They are accessed via Alt+Enter when the cursor is at an erroneous position. The plugin provides three types of inspections:

• Surround with quotes Surrounds the current field with quotes and escapes already existing ones
• Add separator Adds a (missing) separator at the cursor position
• Add closing quote Adds a (missing) closing quote at the end of the document

• File > Settings > Editor > Intentions > CSV

Intentions are similar to inspections and provide a quick way to automatically adjust the document. They are accessed via Alt+Enter at any time. The shown intentions can vary depending on the cursor position within the document. The plugin provides six types of intentions:

• Quote All Surrounds all unquoted fields with quotes
• Quote Value Quotes the currently unquoted value at the cursor position
• Unquote All Unquotes all quoted fields if possible
• Unquote Value Unquotes the currently quoted value at the cursor position if possible
• Shift Column Left Shifts the column at cursor position to the left
• Shift Column Right Shifts the column at cursor position to the right

• View > Tool Windows > Structure

The structure view shows the first line of the currently opened CSV file as header. Expanding a header entry shows all entries in this column.

Install it from the Jetbrains plugin repository within your IDE (recommended):

• File > Settings > Plugins > Browse repositories... > Search 'CSV Plugin' > Category 'Editor'

You can also download the JAR package from the Jetbrains plugin repository or from GitHub Releases and add it manually to your plugins:

• File > Settings > Plugins > Install plugin from disk...

Contributions are welcome. Please check CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

Besides source code contributions, feel free to open bug reports or just suggest new features here.

Where is the table editor?

The initial intention of this plugin was the usage of the built-in text-editor features (e.g. validation, highlighting, formatting, etc) for CSV files. Providing an own editor was not planned at all. Still, it's just a matter of time and effort that needs to be invested for the implementation. Feel free to contribute to make this dream come true.

Please note that there is a table like editor available in IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate/PhpStorm/DataGrip/etc. It is a well thought-through component and worth giving it a try if a CSV table editor is a necessity in your daily work. This plugin is fully compatible with this feature.

Why can't I choose the separator freely?

Having clearly defined symbols enables the syntax parser and language lexer to do its job properly. The code for those is generated during build time by using the Grammar-Kit. Adding a new kind of separator during development is fairly easy (please feel free to request a new commonly used one) in comparison to the implementation effort and usefulness of a freely defined separator.

JetBrains Plugin Repository Link: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/10037-csv-plugin