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CSV files and the CSV Lint plug-in for Notepad++, view, edit, sort and convert text data more easily
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CSV files and the CSV Lint plug-in for Notepad++, view, edit, sort and convert text data more easily

New Section

This section provides an introduction to using Notepad++ with the CSV Lint plug-in.

Using Notepad++ with CSV Lint Plug-in

  • In this video I'll show you how to use Notepad++ with the CSV Lint plug-in.
  • You can download Notepad++ from their website.
  • To install the CSV Lint plug-in, go to the Plug-ins menu and select Plug-ins Admin. Search for "csv lint" and install it.
  • After restarting Notepad++, the CSV Lint plug-in will be available in the Plugins menu and toolbar.

Syntax Highlighting

  • The CSV Lint plug-in can add syntax highlighting to make data files easier to read.
  • Different colors are assigned to each column in larger data files, improving readability.
  • Color presets can be customized in the plug-in settings or through style configuration in Notepad++.

Column Meta Data

  • The CSV Lint window displays metadata of the active text file, including column data types detected by the plug-in or read from a schema.ini file.
  • Validation of data based on column meta data is available, with errors listed in a separate textbox for easy identification and navigation.

Conclusion

The transcript provides an overview of using Notepad++ with the CSV Lint plug-in, covering installation, syntax highlighting, and validation based on column meta data.

Reformatting Data and Splitting Columns New Section

In this section, the speaker discusses how to reformat date values and split columns in a data file using a specific tool.

Reformatting Date Values

  • To reformat date values from US format (month, day, year) to ISO format (year, month, day), follow these steps:
  • Press the "Reformat" button.
  • Check the Datetime format and select the desired format.
  • Press OK to apply the changes.
  • Now all date values will be in the year-month-day format.

Splitting Columns

  • To split a column into two separate columns:
  • Press the "Split Column" button.
  • Select the column you want to split.
  • Choose "Split on character" and enter a slash as the delimiter.
  • Optionally, check "Remove original column" if you only want the resulting two new columns.
  • Press OK to perform the split operation.
  • The original column will still be present along with two new columns created by splitting on the specified character.

Handling Invalid Date Values

  • If a column containing dates also includes invalid text values:
  • Use the "Split Column" button again.
  • Select the column with visit dates.
  • Choose "Split valid and invalid values".
  • Check "Remove original column" if desired.
  • Press OK to create two new columns: one with valid date values and another with text values.

Additional Features of CSV Lint Plug-in

  • The CSV Lint plug-in offers more features:
  • The "Analyze data report" provides summary information per column, which can help detect issues like mixed data types or unexpected coded values that are out of range.
  • The plug-in also allows converting the entire dataset to a database insert script, which is useful for importing data into a database.

Conclusion

  • The speaker concludes by asking if there are any additional features viewers would like to see added to the plug-in.
  • For more information, refer to the provided link.
Video description

The CSV Lint plug-in for Notepad++ is useful when working with CSV files (comma separated values) and fixed width text files. It adds syntax highlighting to a csv file, so display each column in a different color, automatically detect the column meta data and data types, it can validate data and check for errors, reformat datetime and decimal values, count unique values and it can generate a data analyze report and SQL insert script. CSV Lint is somewhat similar to Rainbow CSV or CudaText CSV, except it also recognizes column datatypes, so you can convert datetime and decimal values, sort a dataset, generate SQL, Python or Rstudio scripts, generate datadictionary with column metadata, and other processing and data validation features. 0:00 How to install 1:30 Syntax highlight colors 3:25 Meta data 4:22 Validate data 5:21 Reformat data 6:25 Other features CSV Lint plug-in on GitHub https://github.com/BdR76/CSVLint If you want to support this project, you can buy me a coffee. https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=US5SMK2DC6TXE This is not strictly CSV Lint related, but if you have a Microsoft account, you can help by upvoting these two csv questions on the Microsoft feedback page, thanks https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/search/?q=schema.ini * The data in this video is not real production data, it is randomly generated test data, see https://github.com/BdR76/RandomValuesNPP