[Tutorial] CSV Files

SaxonRah · May 27, 2014, 4:16am

There is a better way! Don’t listen to me. Go to Iniside’s post!

As requested

You can do something like this to read any file separated by a delimiter, but here we are reading csv files letter by letter separated by a delimiter “,”; line by line in c++

I like to typedef stuff, if im going to use it allot/complicated bracketing.

Init:



/*--------------------INIT--------------------*/
typedef struct{
    int lineCount;
    int letCount;
}infoCSV;

typedef vector<vector<string> > csvVector;

infoCSV readCSV(istream &input, vector< vector<string> > &output);
/*--------------------INIT--------------------*/

Code:



/*--------------------CODE--------------------*/
infoCSV readCSV(istream &input, vector< vector<string> > &output) {
    infoCSV newInfo;
    newInfo.lineCount = 0;
    newInfo.letCount = 0;


    string csvLine;
    while (getline(input, csvLine)) {
        istringstream csvStream(csvLine);
        vector<string> csvColumn;
        string csvElement;
        while (getline(csvStream, csvElement, DELIMITER)) {
            csvColumn.push_back(csvElement);
            newInfo.letCount++;
        }
        output.push_back(csvColumn);
        newInfo.lineCount++;
    }
    return newInfo;
}
/*--------------------CODE--------------------*/

Usage:



/*--------------------USAGE--------------------*/
string fileName = "filename.csv";
    fstream file(fileName, ios::in);
    if (!file.is_open()) {
        exit(1);
    }

    csvVector csvData;
    infoCSV currentCSVInfo;
    currentCSVInfo = readCSV(file, csvData);

    int cX = 0, cY = 0;

    // print out read data to prove reading is working
    for (csvVector::iterator i = csvData.begin(); i != csvData.end(); ++i) {
        for (vector<string>::iterator j = i->begin(); j != i->end(); ++j) {
            vector<string>::iterator iY = find(i->begin(), i->end(), "
");
            if (iY != i->end()){
                cY = distance(i->begin(), iY);
            }
            else {
                cY = distance(i->begin(), iY);
            }
            // Check for Values of slot
            if (*j == something1) {
                              doSomething1();
            }
            if (*j == something2){
                              doSomething2();
            }
              //Sample Code
              //CaptureY += offset;
              //if (CaptureY >= offset * cY){ CaptureY = 0; }
        }
         //Sample Code
         //CaptureX += offset;
    }
/*--------------------USAGE--------------------*/

You could use this for an inventory system for when a player quits the game. I use this to read random levels generated and saved into CSV files real-time;

Or whatever. Enjoy.

~Rah

iniside · May 27, 2014, 5:51am

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Programming/Gameplay/DataDriven/index.html

There is already buld in support for csv files and data reading.

Though nice effort, you didn’t need to reinvent a wheel ;).

SaxonRah · May 27, 2014, 2:47pm

I was requested to make a tutorial about the CSV options from my random level gen, I guess it would have been really smart to SEARCH it first, hehe.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention ! It’s so much simpler !