[Csv] skipfinalspace

[Magnus Lie Hetland]

On Oct 20, 2008, at 09:48, John Machin wrote:

> Based on my experience extracting data from innumerable csv files  
> (and infinite varieties thereof), spreadsheet files, and database  
> tables, in 99.99% of cases one should automatically apply the  
> following transformations to each text field:
>   * strip leading whitespace
>   * strip trailing whitespace
>   * replace embedded runs of whitespace by a single space
> and one needs to ensure that the definition of whitespace includes  
> the no-break space (NBSP) character.
>
> As this "space normalisation" is needed for all input sources, the  
> csv module is IMHO the wrong place to put it. A string method would  
> be a better idea.

Hm. It seems quite familiar, somehow...

You could certainly do the following (for each field)...

   " ".join(field.split())

... but I seem to recall running across something that did this?  
(Maybe I'm confusing it with some other issue, with the  
string.capwords function versis str.title :)

-- 
Magnus Lie Hetland
http://hetland.org