Bug report: “-” seems to break CSV outputs

  • Resolved Pieterjan Deneys

    (@nekojonez)


    1 year, 1 month ago

    So, I have this form for reserving tickets on the website of my acting group and I noticed that somebody placed this in a question: https://ibb.co/1rGGK2h (censored things are names and GDPR things I’m obiviously not allowed to share)

    Yet in my CSV export, this happens: https://ibb.co/J7hc2LR (censored things are names and GDPR things I’m obiviously not allowed to share)

    Either an enter or a “-” at the start of a line breaks the CSV exports like this. Especially when it happens in paragraph text question.

    I noticed the same behaviour in other forms. So, I think it’s no use giving the link to the exact form or sending you the CSV… Since, I was able to recreate it with a form with a paragraph question and entered the same text. With a blank form and the same when I tried it on a totally different website setup.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Support sanjuacharya77

    (@sanjuacharya77)

    Hi @nekojonez,

    We sincerely apologize for the delay.

    We conducted a test in our environment, and it appears to be functioning properly when the “Enter” or “-” is used in the paragraph text field. You can find the test form’s JSON file and CSV file at this link: https://encl.io/t/NDap-3D993o#b3I_TfsmE1cTZLduoZ71Lg

    Can you duplicate the form, input random data, and share both the JSON file of the form and the CSV file of the entries? We will check it on our site and get back to you accordingly.

    Regards!

    Thread Starter Pieterjan Deneys

    (@nekojonez)

    This is strange, since I opened the CSV in my Excel and saw this:

    https://ibb.co/80gMY5n

    I looked at in Notepad++ and noticed that enters do really appear in the export and recent versions of Excel seem to treat them as a new line. The “#NAAM” you see in the screenshot is because Excel sees that “-” and tries to make a formula out of it. I’m using the Dutch install of my main desktop, yet on my work PC where I have the English install, it’s breaking in the same way.

    I use Office365 v2310 Build 16.0.16924.20054

    The big issue is that when you are trying to use the “Text to columns” feature in Excel here for easy processing of this form, it breaks that. You’ll need to fix the lines first. When I tried doing that with your example CSV, I got this lovely mess:

    https://ibb.co/5B4Dbsj

    Granted, you can cut & paste them all to make every entry one line… But try to explain that at somebody who just does admin work and isn’t very versed in computers. ??

    This is what I meant with “breaking”. I can totally see that this is your expected output since we are seeing the information on a new line. Yet, if I use something like Microsoft Forms, they keep that field in one line and just ignore enters.

    I think this can be fixed with a new CSV/JSON export where in multi text fields enters are just ignored or at least not making a new line. Of course, a new entry will still need to make a new line.

    Sorry for the delay as well, I had a lot of other things to do as well and now I have some time diving into this one.

    Plugin Support sanjuacharya77

    (@sanjuacharya77)

    Hi,

    Thank you for taking the time to investigate the CSV export issue and share your detailed findings. It’s insightful to see how Excel handles line breaks in different language versions and the challenges it poses with tools like ‘Text to Columns.’
    Your suggestion for improving the CSV/JSON export is valuable and something we’ll definitely consider for future updates. We appreciate your dedication in looking into this matter and your patience.

    Regards!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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