Changing delimiter in a loaded csv file - excel

Question

I have loaded a csv file in memory. My csv file uses ";" as the field delimiter.
It seems vba default delimiter is "," because when I try to access certain row and column of the loaded csv file, vba advances through the elements with refrence to number of "," used.
example:
In the 10th row of my data there are five columns: aa 12,34 bb 5,678 (here "," is decimal separator)
in the csv file which the delimiter is ";" it looks like this:
aa;12,34;bb;5,678
so when I write
MyData(10,2)
I am expecting to get 12,34 but vba returns 34;bb;5 because it uses "," as field delimiter.
So my question:
How can I tell vba to search through the loaded csv file with respect to ";" as delimiter instead of ","?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Instead of trying to change the delimiter which excel uses to load a csv file it might be more straightforward to do that on your own
First you use a function to load the lines of a text file into a collection and then you access the wanted line in that collection and go to the wanted column.
Code for this
Option Explicit
Function txtfileinCol(filename As String) As Collection
' loads the content of a textfile line by line into a collection
Dim fileContent As Collection
Set fileContent = New Collection
Dim fileNo As Long
Dim txtLine As String
fileNo = FreeFile
Open filename For Input As #fileNo
Do Until EOF(fileNo)
Line Input #fileNo, txtLine
fileContent.Add txtLine
Loop
Close #fileNo
Set txtfileinCol = fileContent
End Function
Sub Testit()
Const DELIMITER = ";"
Dim filename As String
Dim col As Collection
Dim vdat As Variant
Dim colNo As Long
Dim rowNo As Long
filename = "C:\Temp\FILE.csv"
Set col = txtfileinCol(filename)
colNo = 2
rowNo = 10
vdat = col.Item(rowNo) 'here you get the line you want
vdat = Split(vdat, DELIMITER) ' now you split the line with the DELIMITER you define
Debug.Print vdat(colNo - 1) ' now you print the content of the column you want
End Sub
Update: For accessing the row and column you could also use a function. The code would look like that
Option Explicit
Function txtfileinCol(filename As String) As Collection
' loads the content of a textfile line by line into a collection
Dim fileContent As Collection
Set fileContent = New Collection
Dim fileNo As Long
Dim txtLine As String
fileNo = FreeFile
Open filename For Input As #fileNo
Do Until EOF(fileNo)
Line Input #fileNo, txtLine
fileContent.Add txtLine
Loop
Close #fileNo
Set txtfileinCol = fileContent
End Function
Function getColRow(fileLines As Collection, rowNo As Long, colNo As Long, Optional delimiter As String) As String
Dim vdat As Variant
On Error GoTo EH:
If Len(delimiter) = 0 Then
delimiter = ";"
End If
vdat = fileLines.Item(rowNo) 'here you get the line
vdat = Split(vdat, delimiter) 'now you split the line with the delimiter
getColRow = vdat(colNo - 1) 'now you retrieve the content of the column
Exit Function
EH:
getColRow = ""
End Function
Sub Testit()
Dim filename As String
Dim col As Collection
filename = "C:\Temp\FILE.csv"
Set col = txtfileinCol(filename)
Debug.Print getColRow(col, 10, 2, ";")
End Sub