CSV VALIDATOR

What Does the CSV Validator Check?

A CSV validator is a tool that reads a file and lists everything that could make another program reject it or misread it. The 2csv parser repairs problems instead of failing, and the validator shows each repair it made, with the line number in the original file, so nothing is changed silently.

• Rows with too few or too many fields, quotes that never close, un-doubled quotes, and stray quotes.
• Blank lines, mixed line endings, a byte-order mark, and a fallback to Windows-1252 encoding.
• Header names that are empty, repeated, or have spaces at the start or end.
• Rows with no values and values with leading or trailing spaces.

How Do Column Rules Work?

A column rule says what every value in a column should look like. The validator then lists each value that breaks the rule, by row. Rules are Anything, Not empty, Whole number, Number, Date, True/false, Email address, and Unique values. Detect column types fills the rules in from the data, so you only adjust the ones it gets wrong.

1. Press Detect column types, or choose a rule for each column yourself.
2. Set Unique values on ID columns and Not empty on required fields.
3. Read the list of values that break each rule, with their row numbers.

How Are Findings Sorted and Reported?

Findings are grouped by severity. Problems are things that will likely break an import, such as a quote that never closes. Warnings are things worth checking, such as a padded row. Notes are information, such as a removed byte-order mark. Each finding gives the line or row number so you can find it in the grid.

You can download the findings as an issue report CSV, with one row per finding. That is useful when the file came from someone else and you need to send them a precise list of what to fix in their export, without sending the data itself.

What Else Can You Do With a CSV Here?

• CSV viewer: Open a CSV of any size, scroll every row, and see a profile of each column.
• Sort CSV: Sort rows by one or more columns, as text, numbers, or dates, ascending or descending.
• Filter CSV: Show only the rows that match an expression such as price > 10 AND state = "NY".
• Remove duplicates from CSV: Find and remove duplicate rows, comparing whole rows or only the columns you choose.
• Trim CSV whitespace: Trim leading and trailing spaces, collapse double spaces, and drop invisible characters and empty rows.
• Find and replace in CSV: Find text in one column or every column and replace it, with match case, whole cell, and regex options.
• Remove rows from CSV: Delete rows by number or range, the first or last rows, empty rows, or rows that match a rule.
• CSV editor: Edit cells, add or delete rows, and add, delete, rename, or move columns.
• Split CSV column: Split one column into several at a delimiter, such as a full name into first and last.
• Merge CSV columns: Join two or more columns into one with the separator you choose, skipping empty values.
• CSV column type converter: Convert a column to clean numbers, ISO dates, true/false, or upper, lower, or title case.
• CSV to JSON converter: Convert CSV to a JSON array of objects or arrays, or to JSON Lines, with typed values.
• JSON to CSV converter: Convert a JSON array or JSON Lines to CSV, flattening nested objects into dotted column names.
• CSV to SQL converter: Turn a CSV into SQL INSERT statements, with an optional CREATE TABLE, for PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, or SQL Server.
• CSV to TSV converter: Convert a comma-separated file to tab-separated values that paste cleanly into spreadsheets.
• TSV to CSV converter: Convert a tab-separated file to a standard, properly quoted comma-separated CSV.
• CSV splitter: Split a large CSV into smaller files of a set number of rows, with the header repeated in each.

All eighteen tools are on the 2csv home page, and once a file is open you can switch between them without reloading it. Part of the 2suite.io privacy-first ecosystem.