Regex for Data Extraction and TransformationLesson 6.4
Regex to parse CSV and TSV data rows
CSV edge cases, quoted fields with commas, newlines in quoted fields, split vs regex, RFC 4180, Python csv module note
CSV Looks Simple Until It Is Not
Splitting on commas breaks when fields contain quoted commas. A regex handles quoted fields correctly.
// Naive — WRONG for quoted fields
'Alice,"New York, NY",30'.split(',')
// => ['Alice', '"New York', ' NY"', '30'] — broken
When to Use a Library
For production CSV parsing, use a dedicated library: papaparse in JavaScript or Python's built-in csv module.