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CSV to HTML Example


Summary

Learn how to load CSV data into your program, and output it as HTML:

A Note on Compiling and Running

To compile and run the Java programs in this example, either import them into your IDE (say, Eclipse or NetBeans), or follow the standard manual compilation instructions. When running the programs, run them in the same folder as this README.htm file, so that they can find their input files.

The Data

Let's use a list of Shakespeare's plays as our example data. The CSV file contains the list of all of Shakespeare's known plays, with data fields for title, type of play (comedy, tragedy, history), and year of writing.

plays.csv

Title, Type, Year
"A Midsummer Night's Dream", COMEDY, 1595
"All's Well That Ends Well", COMEDY, 1602
"Antony and Cleopatra", TRAGEDY, 1606
"As You Like It", COMEDY, 1599
"Comedy of Errors", COMEDY, 1589
"Coriolanus", TRAGEDY, 1607
"Cymbeline", HISTORY, 1609
"Hamlet", TRAGEDY, 1600
"Henry IV, Part I", HISTORY, 1597
"Henry IV, Part II", HISTORY, 1597
"Henry V", HISTORY, 1598
"Henry VI, Part I", HISTORY, 1591
"Henry VI, Part II", HISTORY, 1590
"Henry VI, Part III", HISTORY, 1590
"Henry VIII", HISTORY, 1612
"Julius Caesar", TRAGEDY, 1599
"King John", HISTORY, 1596
"King Lear", TRAGEDY, 1605
"Love's Labour's Lost", COMEDY, 1594
"Macbeth", TRAGEDY, 1605
"Measure for Measure", COMEDY, 1604
"Much Ado about Nothing", COMEDY, 1598
"Othello", TRAGEDY, 1604
"Pericles", HISTORY, 1608
"Richard II", HISTORY, 1595
"Richard III", HISTORY, 1592
"Romeo and Juliet", TRAGEDY, 1594
"The Merchant of Venice", COMEDY, 1596
"The Merry Wives of Windsor", COMEDY, 1600
"The Taming of the Shrew", COMEDY, 1593
"The Tempest", COMEDY, 1611
"The Winter's Tale", COMEDY, 1610
"Timon of Athens", TRAGEDY, 1607
"Titus Andronicus", TRAGEDY, 1593
"Troilus and Cressida", TRAGEDY, 1601 
"Twelfth Night", COMEDY, 1599 
"Two Gentlemen of Verona", COMEDY, 1594

We want to be able to load this data into our program, so that we can convert the data into HTML that we can display nicely.

Loading the CSV Data

First, let's look at loading the data. It's not a very big file, so let's just load all the CSV data into memory at once. We'll use the simplest method in CSV Manager: load. We can pass in a File object and CSV Manager will load the file, converting the CSV text data into a List of String[] arrays.

Here's the code:


CsvManager csvman = new CsvManager();
List       data   = csvman.load( "plays.csv" );

(The full code for this example is shown in the LoadPlays.java file)

That's it. All done. Now you have a nice List of String[] arrays to work with. You can loop through all the elements of the List, cast each into a String[] array, and then access the elements of the String[] array one by one. You'll have one String[] array for each line of the CSV file.

How many elements will be in the String[] arrays? As many data fields are there are in each line of the CSV file — CSV Manager never drops data. You always get all the data that's there, even if some lines in the CSV file are longer than others. You can find out more about how CSV Manager handles missing data in the documentation for the CsvSpec.setNumFields method.

Creating HTML from the CSV Data

Now that we have our CSV data in a convenient data structure (a List of String[] arrays), we can just loop through the data and keep adding HTML elements to a StringBuffer.

Here's the code:


StringBuffer htmlTable 
  = new StringBuffer("<html><body><table>\n");

for( int line = 0; line < data.size(); line++ ) {
  htmlTable.append( "<tr>\n" );

  String[] fields = (String[]) data.get(line);
  for( int field = 0; field < fields.length; field++ ) {
    String celltype = (0==line?"th":"td");
    htmlTable.append( "<"+celltype+" align=\"left\">"
                      +fields[field]
                      +"</"+celltype+">\n" );
  }

  htmlTable.append( "</tr>\n" );
}
htmlTable.append( "</table></body></html>\n" );

We go through the data one line at a time, and for each line, we go through the line one data field at a time. For each line we need a table row: <tr> ... </tr>. And for each field we need a table cell: <td> ... </td>. Inside the table cell we put the String contents of the CSV data field, taken from the String[] provided by CSV Manager for that line of the CSV file.

All this HTML text is built up in the StringBuffer. We also add the surrounding HTML elements for a normal HTML page, and the HTML table: <html><body><table> ... </table></body></html> We've left the head element out as we don't need it for this example.

One other thing that we're doing is making sure that the headers of the CSV file, that is, the fields of the first row, appear as table headers in the HTML. For this special case, we output <th> ... </th> for each data field. This only applies to the first line of data (when line == 0).

At the end of all this we have our HTML page text in the htmlTable variable. Now all we have to do is save this HTML to a file and we're done!

Saving the HTML to a File

We'll just save the HTML text using some standard Java classes, so here's the code:


FileWriter htmlFile = new FileWriter( "plays.htm" );
htmlFile.write( htmlTable.toString() );
htmlFile.close();

These lines of code create the file plays.htm and save the HTML text to it. If you compile and run the LoadPlays.java program, you'll find the plays.htm file output beside the plays.csv file.

Here's the output HTML, so you can see what we've actually created:


<html><body><table>
<tr>
<th align="left">Title</th>
<th align="left">Type</th>
<th align="left">Year</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">A Midsummer Night's Dream</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1595</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">All's Well That Ends Well</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1602</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Antony and Cleopatra</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1606</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">As You Like It</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1599</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Comedy of Errors</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1589</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Coriolanus</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1607</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Cymbeline</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1609</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Hamlet</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry IV, Part I</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1597</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry IV, Part II</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1597</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry V</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1598</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry VI, Part I</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1591</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry VI, Part II</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1590</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry VI, Part III</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1590</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Henry VIII</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1612</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Julius Caesar</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1599</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">King John</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1596</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">King Lear</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1605</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Love's Labour's Lost</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1594</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Macbeth</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1605</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Measure for Measure</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1604</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Much Ado about Nothing</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1598</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Othello</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1604</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Pericles</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1608</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Richard II</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1595</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Richard III</td>
<td align="left">HISTORY</td>
<td align="left">1592</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Romeo and Juliet</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1594</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">The Merchant of Venice</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1596</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">The Merry Wives of Windsor</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">The Taming of the Shrew</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1593</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">The Tempest</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1611</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">The Winter's Tale</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1610</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Timon of Athens</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1607</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Titus Andronicus</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1593</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Troilus and Cressida</td>
<td align="left">TRAGEDY</td>
<td align="left">1601</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Twelfth Night</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1599</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">Two Gentlemen of Verona</td>
<td align="left">COMEDY</td>
<td align="left">1594</td>
</tr>
</table></body></html>

... which ends up looking like this:

Title Type Year
A Midsummer Night's Dream COMEDY 1595
All's Well That Ends Well COMEDY 1602
Antony and Cleopatra TRAGEDY 1606
As You Like It COMEDY 1599
Comedy of Errors COMEDY 1589
Coriolanus TRAGEDY 1607
Cymbeline HISTORY 1609
Hamlet TRAGEDY 1600
Henry IV, Part I HISTORY 1597
Henry IV, Part II HISTORY 1597
Henry V HISTORY 1598
Henry VI, Part I HISTORY 1591
Henry VI, Part II HISTORY 1590
Henry VI, Part III HISTORY 1590
Henry VIII HISTORY 1612
Julius Caesar TRAGEDY 1599
King John HISTORY 1596
King Lear TRAGEDY 1605
Love's Labour's Lost COMEDY 1594
Macbeth TRAGEDY 1605
Measure for Measure COMEDY 1604
Much Ado about Nothing COMEDY 1598
Othello TRAGEDY 1604
Pericles HISTORY 1608
Richard II HISTORY 1595
Richard III HISTORY 1592
Romeo and Juliet TRAGEDY 1594
The Merchant of Venice COMEDY 1596
The Merry Wives of Windsor COMEDY 1600
The Taming of the Shrew COMEDY 1593
The Tempest COMEDY 1611
The Winter's Tale COMEDY 1610
Timon of Athens TRAGEDY 1607
Titus Andronicus TRAGEDY 1593
Troilus and Cressida TRAGEDY 1601
Twelfth Night COMEDY 1599
Two Gentlemen of Verona COMEDY 1594

So that's all done! The key thing is that once you have the CSV data inside your program as a simple Java data strucuture (a List of String[] arrays), then it becomes very easy to work with.

Source Code

Here is a list of all the files used in this example. Note that the actual source code is slightly longer than the examples above, which have been abridged for clarity.

Feel free to experiment with these files and see what happens. You can also use them as the basis for your own solutions.

Questions and Comments

Please feel free to email us at examples@ricebridge.com if you have any questions or comments about this example.

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