I have a csv file with headers in order fname,mname,lname and a csv parser to parse this. I am reading the file line by line and splitting by delimitter (",") and according to index i'll get the values 0=fname, 1=mname, 2=lname.
Now again if a csv comes with headers in the order lname,fname and mname i have to change the code again. I want to write a generic parser which regardless of the order of the header stores the value in respective fields. Any suggestions?
I suggest not to write a generic parser and use Apache Commons CSV.
As you don't know the order of the columns, use CSVFormat as described in its documentation:
Referencing columns safely
If your source contains a header record, you can simplify your code and safely reference columns, by using withHeader(String...) with no arguments:
CSVFormat.EXCEL.withHeader();This causes the parser to read the first record and use its values as column names. Then, call one of the CSVRecord get method that takes a String column name argument:
String value = record.get("Col1");This makes your code impervious to changes in column order in the CSV file.
CSVFormat precisely allows you to reference columns without knowing their order. See my edit.
Arraylist<String>read the line by line .. when you look forfname, get the index of it from the arraylist then you will know the index of the stored data. Agian that's just a hack. Personally create yourself an object for each Line with the appropriate headers as your deal with each line .