[Qgis-developer] QGIS 2.10.1 Pisa - Read CSV file problem

[Zoltan Szecsei]

Hi Andreas,
I didn't get you wrong, your point on the smallness of this issue is 
quite valid, and I don't personally have a problem with this silent 
error, so I am just providing feedback.

I posted the issue because

 1. There are possibly users out there who have issues with this, but
    may not be brave enough to publicly state this as an error,
 2. Because as a user, I find it a responsibility to provide feedback
    when/if I see fit.
 3. I know there should be some pride in making QGIS as robust as
    possible, so may (some) devs want to know about the smaller issues.

So, I've logged it as a bug, and I am not putting in an invoice for my 
time doing so. In the spirit of open source, you understand.
[sense of humour required, please]

Regards and keep well,
Zoltan

On 2015/08/06 11:30, Neumann, Andreas wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Don't get me wrong. I am not against fixing it. I was just trying to 
> put it into perspective. Just because there is one dataset that has 
> these weird column names it doesn't mean the CSV import tool is 
> broken. You can just as well advise the StatsSA agency to improve 
> their column names into something more meaningful - e.g. age_10 - what 
> if you want to join the data later and you have again column names 
> with numbers? What if another person takes over the project and has no 
> idea what the numbers mean without a separate metadata description? 
> What if you want to do "Save AS" with such a layer and the data format 
> prohibits columns named with numbers?
>
> Anyway - its not good practice to name columns with numbers. In most 
> database you will have to escape such column names with quotes or it 
> is even forbidden.
>
> If you want to have it fixed you have the three options:
>
> - Fix it yourself in the code and provide a pull request
> - Pay a developer to fix it to have it fixed in a short time frame
> - File a feature request and wait until someone has the time to fix it
>
> Andreas
>
> On 2015-08-06 08:04, Zoltan Szecsei wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> Fine - I did ask for an opinion, and I got one :-)
>>
>> The CSV files are from South Africa's 2011 Census - as put out by 
>> StatsSA, and exported from SuperCROSS.
>> In this particular file, the numeric field names are for the "Age 
>> last birthday" of the occupant. (yep, from 0 to 120!!!)
>>
>> So in short, I guess there are many, many users of this data - and 
>> for me an unnoticed error/deficiency, is still and error/deficiency.
>>
>> Whilst I am not too perturbed because I can get around this issue, I 
>> figured it was my "civic" duty to raise it.
>>
>> Cheers for now,
>> Zoltan
>>
>>
>> On 2015/08/06 07:56, Neumann, Andreas wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> In my opinion it is quite "special" to name columns with integer 
>>> numbers. Not what the average GIS user would do. In my own 
>>> 2-decade GIS career I never had such an issue.
>>>
>>> I am not against fixing this issue, but I don't think it is a 
>>> serious issue. We have many more important issues in QGIS.
>>>
>>> Andreas
>>>
>>> On 2015-08-06 07:31, Zoltan Szecsei wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hi Chris,
>>>     Thanks for the opinion.
>>>     Do I log this as a bug?
>>>
>>>     Whilst I am quite happy to write a bash script to parse and
>>>     alter my 500 CSV files, I do feel that this is likely a more
>>>     serious issue, as it will affect, I assume a lot of, users that
>>>     load CSV files to join them to their spatial data.
>>>     Maybe the silence on this is because it either goes unnoticed,
>>>     or there are many people just doing a work-around.
>>>
>>>     Let me know.
>>>
>>>     Thanks & regards,
>>>     Zoltan
>>>
>>>     On 2015/⁠08/⁠05 02:55, Chris Crook wrote:
>>>
>>>         Hi Zoltan
>>>
>>>         I think this could be classed as an error!  The source code rejects field names that look like positive numbers (some digits optionally followed by a period and some more digits).
>>>
>>>         I can't recall a reason why it should do this.  It could be reasonable to require field names to be compatible to database attribute names, but I can't see any need for that within QGIS itself.  This can go on a 'to-⁠do' list to fix...
>>>
>>>         Cheers
>>>         Chris
>>>
>>>             -⁠-⁠-⁠-⁠-⁠Original Message-⁠-⁠-⁠-⁠-⁠
>>>             From: Zoltan Szecsei [mailto:zoltans at geograph.co.za
>>>             <mailto:zoltans at geograph.co.za>]
>>>             Sent: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 10:27 p.m.
>>>             To: Qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
>>>             <mailto:Qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org>
>>>             Subject: [Qgis-⁠developer] QGIS 2.10.1 Pisa -⁠ Read CSV file problem
>>>
>>>             Hi,
>>>             Using the above version on Win 7 64 bit, I read a CSV file (as attributes only)
>>>             stipulating that "first record has field names"
>>>             Record 1 is as follows:
>>>             "SALnum","SALnam","1","2","3","4","5","6","7","8","9","10+"
>>>
>>>             When I open the attribute table, I see that fields 1 & 2 have names SALnum
>>>             and SALnam, but the rest are called 'Field_3', 'Field_4' and so on.
>>>
>>>             When I edit record 1 of this CSV file to look like:
>>>             "SALnum","SALnam","1p","2p","3p","4p","5p","6p","7p","8p","9p","10+p"
>>>
>>>             The I get the correct field names (albeit 1p instead of just "1")
>>>
>>>             Is this an error, or is there some reason further down the line, that attribute
>>>             tables cannot have 'numeric' field names?
>>>
>>>             Thanks and regards,
>>>             Zoltan
>>>
>>>
>>>             -⁠-⁠
>>>
>>>             ===========================================
>>>             Zoltan Szecsei PrGISc [PGP0031]
>>>             Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
>>>             GIS and Photogrammetric Services
>>>
>>>             P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.
>>>
>>>             Mobile: +27-⁠83-⁠6004028
>>>             Fax:    +27-⁠86-⁠6115323 www.geograph.co.za
>>>             <http://www.geograph.co.za>
>>>             ===========================================
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>     -- 
>>>
>>>     ===========================================
>>>     Zoltan Szecsei PrGISc [PGP0031]
>>>     Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
>>>     GIS and Photogrammetric Services
>>>
>>>     P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.
>>>
>>>     Mobile: +27-⁠83-⁠6004028
>>>     Fax:    +27-⁠86-⁠6115323 www.geograph.co.za
>>>     <http://www.geograph.co.za>
>>>     ===========================================
>>>
>>>     _______________________________________________
>>>     Qgis-⁠developer mailing list
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>>
>> -- 
>>
>> ===========================================
>> Zoltan Szecsei PrGISc [PGP0031]
>> Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
>> GIS and Photogrammetric Services
>>
>> P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.
>>
>> Mobile: +27-83-6004028
>> Fax:    +27-86-6115323www.geograph.co.za
>> ===========================================
>

-- 

===========================================
Zoltan Szecsei PrGISc [PGP0031]
Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
GIS and Photogrammetric Services

P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.

Mobile: +27-83-6004028
Fax:    +27-86-6115323     www.geograph.co.za
===========================================

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