TChilkatCsv Delphi ActiveX Reference Documentation

TChilkatCsv

Current Version: 10.1.0

A class for reading and updating CSV files. Provides methods for accessing cell contents by name or index, updating cells, reading and setting column names, etc.

Importing the Chilkat ActiveX into Delphi

Important: When upgrading to a new version of Chilkat, make sure to re-imported ActiveX DLL into Delphi to regenerate the files described below.

Chilkat v9.5.*: If using Chilkat v9.5.*, then use "Chilkat_v9_5_0_TLB" instead of "Chilkat_TLB", and the DLLs are named ChilkatAx-9.5.0-win32.dll (or ChilkatAx-9.5.0-x64.dll).

Two things are required to use an ActiveX in Delphi:

The ActiveX DLL needs to be registered via regsvr32 on the system where the Delphi application runs. See How To Register ActiveX DLLs for detailed information.
See also: ActiveX Registration Tutorial
The ActiveX component needs to be "imported". Use the Delphi Import Component Wizard to import the Chilkat type library. This creates the following files: Chilkat_TLB.pas and Chilkat_TLB.dcr. The Chilkat_TLB.pas should be added to your project.

To import the Chilkat type library, do the following:

In the Delphi RAD Studio, select the menu item "Component" --> "Import a Type Library".
Find "Chilkat ActiveX" in the list and select it. This will only appear in the list if the ChilkatAx-win32.dll (or ChilkatAx-x64.dll) has been registered w/ regsvr32.
Check the "Generate Component Wrappers" checkbox.
Select a directory where the unit files (.pas and .dcr) should be generated.
Select "Create Unit" and then "Finish".
Add the .pas to your Delphi project.

To use a Chilkat ActiveX object in your Delphi code, add "Chilkat_TLB" to the "uses" statement. For example:

uses
  Winapi.Windows, Winapi.Messages, System.SysUtils, System.Variants, System.Classes, Vcl.Graphics,
  Vcl.Controls, Vcl.Forms, Vcl.Dialogs, Vcl.StdCtrls, Chilkat_TLB;

Object Creation

var
obj: TChilkatCsv;
...
begin
obj := TChilkatCsv.Create(Self);
...
// When finished, free the object instance.
obj.Free();

Properties

AutoTrim

property AutoTrim: Integer

If 1, then the strings returned by GetCell and GetCellByName are auto-trimmed of whitespace from both ends.

Crlf

property Crlf: Integer

If 1, then CRLF line endings are used when saving the CSV to a file or to a string (i.e. for the methods SaveFile, SaveFile2, SaveToString). If 0 then bare LF line-endings are used.

DebugLogFilePath

property DebugLogFilePath: WideString

If set to a file path, causes each Chilkat method or property call to automatically append it's LastErrorText to the specified log file. The information is appended such that if a hang or crash occurs, it is possible to see the context in which the problem occurred, as well as a history of all Chilkat calls up to the point of the problem. The VerboseLogging property can be set to provide more detailed information.

This property is typically used for debugging the rare cases where a Chilkat method call hangs or generates an exception that halts program execution (i.e. crashes). A hang or crash should generally never happen. The typical causes of a hang are:

a timeout related property was set to 0 to explicitly indicate that an infinite timeout is desired,
the hang is actually a hang within an event callback (i.e. it is a hang within the application code), or
there is an internal problem (bug) in the Chilkat code that causes the hang.

More Information and Examples

Example showing how to use DebugLogFilePath.

Delimiter

property Delimiter: WideString

The character that separates fields in a record. It is a comma by default. If the Delimiter property is not explicitly set, the CSV component will detect the delimiter when loading a CSV. (Semicolons are typically used in locales where the comma is used as a decimal point.)

Note 1: If the default comma delimiter is not desired when creating a new CSV, make sure to set this property before adding rows/columns to the CSV.

Note 2: If the application explicitly sets the delimiter to the vertical bar character ("|"), and if the EnableQuotes property was never explicitly set, then EnableQuotes will default to 0. This is because when vertical bars are used, quotes are most likely to be treated the same as other characters.

EnableQuotes

property EnableQuotes: Integer

Introduced in version 9.5.0.71

If 1, then the double-quote characters cause the quoted content, including CR's, LF's, and delimiter chars to be treated as normal text when reading/writing CSVs. The default is 1.

More Information and Examples

CSV Enable Quotes

EscapeBackslash

property EscapeBackslash: Integer

Introduced in version 9.5.0.44

If 1, then the backslash character is treated as an escape character when reading/writing CSVs. The default is 0.

HasColumnNames

property HasColumnNames: Integer

Set to 1 prior to loading a CSV if the 1st record contains column names. This allows the CSV parser to correctly load the column names and not treat them as data.

More Information and Examples

CSV Load from String

LastBinaryResult

property LastBinaryResult: OleVariant readonly

The binary data returned by the last (binary data returning) method called. Only available if Chilkat.Global.KeepBinaryResult is set to 1. This provides a means for obtaining large varbinary results in the SQL Server environment (where limitations exist in getting large amounts of data returned by method calls, but where temp tables can be used for binary properties).

LastErrorHtml

property LastErrorHtml: WideString readonly

Provides information in HTML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

LastErrorText

property LastErrorText: WideString readonly

Provides information in plain-text format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

More Information and Examples

Concept of LastErrorText LastErrorText Standard Information

LastErrorXml

property LastErrorXml: WideString readonly

Provides information in XML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

LastMethodSuccess

property LastMethodSuccess: Integer

Indicate whether the last method call succeeded or failed. A value of 1 indicates success, a value of 0 indicates failure. This property is automatically set for method calls. It is not modified by property accesses. The property is automatically set to indicate success for the following types of method calls:

Any method that returns a string.
Any method returning a Chilkat object, binary bytes, or a date/time.
Any method returning a standard boolean status value where success = 1 and failure = 0.
Any method returning an integer where failure is defined by a return value less than zero.

Note: Methods that do not fit the above requirements will always set this property equal to 1. For example, a method that returns no value (such as a "void" in C++) will technically always succeed.

LastStringResult

property LastStringResult: WideString readonly

The string return value of the last (string returning) method called. Only available if Chilkat.Global.KeepStringResult is set to 1. This provides a means for obtaining large string results in the SQL Server environment (where limitations exist in getting long strings returned by method calls, but where temp tables can be used for string properties).

More Information and Examples

Long Strings Returned by ActiveX Methods in SQL Server

LastStringResultLen

property LastStringResultLen: Integer readonly

The length, in characters, of the string contained in the LastStringResult property.

NumColumns

property NumColumns: Integer readonly

The number of columns in the 1st row, which may be the row containing column names if HasColumnNames is 1.

NumRows

property NumRows: Integer readonly

The number of data rows. If the CSV has column names, the 1st row is not included in the count. Also, empty lines containing only whitespace characters that follow the last non-empty row are not included.

UncommonOptions

property UncommonOptions: WideString

Introduced in version 9.5.0.88

This is a catch-all property to be used for uncommon needs. Chilkat may from time to time define keywords, which if present, change behavior in some way. If multiple keywords are needed, set this property to the comma separated list of keywords.

The following keywords are defined:

QuotedCells (v9.5.0.96) Forces all cell contents to be double-quoted when emitting the CSV to a file or string
QuotedColumnNames (v9.5.0.96) Forces all column names to be double-quoted when emitting the CSV to a file or string
EMIT_BOM (v9.5.0.93) Causes Chilkat to emit the utf-8 BOM (byte order mark) when writing the CSV to a file (assuming the CSV is written using utf-8).

VerboseLogging

property VerboseLogging: Integer

If set to 1, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is 0. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

Version

property Version: WideString readonly

Version of the component/library, such as "9.5.0.94"

More Information and Examples

How to get the Chilkat version at runtime.

Methods

DeleteColumn

function DeleteColumn(index: Integer): Integer;

Deletes the Nth column. (The 1st column is at index 0.)

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Delete Column

DeleteColumnByName

function DeleteColumnByName(columnName: WideString): Integer;

Deletes a column specified by name.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Delete Column by Name

DeleteRow

function DeleteRow(index: Integer): Integer;

Deletes the entire Nth row. (The 1st row is at index 0.)

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

GetCell

function GetCell(row: Integer; col: Integer): WideString;

Returns the contents of the cell at row, col. Indexing begins at 0. (The topmost/leftmost cell is at 0,0)

Returns a zero-length WideString on failure

More Information and Examples

CSV Get Contents of Cell

GetCellByName

function GetCellByName(rowIndex: Integer; columnName: WideString): WideString;

The same as GetCell, but the column is specified by name instead of by index.

Returns a zero-length WideString on failure

More Information and Examples

CSV Get Contents of Cell using Row Index and Column Name

GetColumnName

function GetColumnName(index: Integer): WideString;

Returns the name of the Nth column.

Returns a zero-length WideString on failure

More Information and Examples

CSV Get Column Names

GetIndex

function GetIndex(columnName: WideString): Integer;

Returns the column index for a given column. Returns -1 if no column exists with the columnName.

GetNumCols

function GetNumCols(row: Integer): Integer;

Returns the number of columns for a specific row. If the row is larger than the number of rows in the CSV, a zero is returned.

InsertColumn

function InsertColumn(index: Integer): Integer;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.89

Inserts a new and empty column before the Nth column. (The 1st column is at index 0.)

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Insert Column

LoadFile

function LoadFile(path: WideString): Integer;

Loads a CSV from a file. It is assumed that the CSV file contains ANSI characters.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

LoadFile2

function LoadFile2(filename: WideString; charset: WideString): Integer;

Loads a CSV from a file. The charset specifies the character encoding of the CSV file. A list of supported character encodings may be found on this page: Supported Charsets.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

Read Japanese utf-8 CSV File

LoadFromString

function LoadFromString(csvData: WideString): Integer;

Loads a CSV document from an in-memory string variable.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Load from String

RowMatches

function RowMatches(rowIndex: Integer; matchPattern: WideString; caseSensitive: Integer): Integer;

Compares the contents of an entire row to a wildcarded match pattern where "*" can be used any number of times to match 0 or more of any character. Returns 1 if a match was found, otherwise returns 0. If caseSensitive is 1, then the pattern match is case sensitive, otherwise it is case insensitive.

SaveFile

function SaveFile(path: WideString): Integer;

Saves a CSV to a file. The output file is written using the ANSI character encoding.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

SaveFile2

function SaveFile2(filename: WideString; charset: WideString): Integer;

Saves a CSV to a file. The charset specifies the character encoding to use for the CSV file. The text data is converted to this charset when saving. A list of supported character encodings may be found on this page: Supported Charsets.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

Write utf-8 CSV Compatible with Excel

SaveToSb

function SaveToSb(sb: TChilkatStringBuilder): Integer;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.93

Clears the contents of sb and writes the entire CSV into sb.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

SaveToString

function SaveToString(): WideString;

Returns the entire CSV as a string.

Returns a zero-length WideString on failure

SetCell

function SetCell(row: Integer; col: Integer; content: WideString): Integer;

Sets the contents for a single cell in the CSV. The content may include any characters including CRLF's, double-quotes, and the delimiter character. The Save* methods automatically double-quote fields with special chars when saving. The Load* methods automatically parse double-quoted and/or escaped fields correctly when loading.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Set Cell by Index or Name CSV Append New Row

SetCellByName

function SetCellByName(rowIndex: Integer; columnName: WideString; contentStr: WideString): Integer;

The same as SetCell, except the column is specified by name instead of by index.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Set Cell by Index or Name

SetColumnName

function SetColumnName(index: Integer; columnName: WideString): Integer;

Sets the name of the Nth column. The first column is at index 0. This method would only return 0 if an invalid index is passed (such as a negative number).

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

More Information and Examples

CSV Set Column Name

SortByColumn

function SortByColumn(columnName: WideString; ascending: Integer; caseSensitive: Integer): Integer;

Sorts the rows in the CSV by the contents of a specific column. If ascending is 1, the sort is in ascending order, otherwise descending order. If caseSensitive is 1 then the sorting is case sensitive.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.

SortByColumnIndex

function SortByColumnIndex(index: Integer; ascending: Integer; caseSensitive: Integer): Integer;

Introduced in version 9.5.0.83

Sorts the rows in the CSV by the contents of a specific column index. If ascending is 1, the sort is in ascending order, otherwise descending order. If caseSensitive is 1 then the sorting is case sensitive.

Returns 1 for success, 0 for failure.