HACKER Q&A
📣 ryncewynd

Massaging many client CSV/textfile to correct columns/format etc.?


We have hundreds of files arriving every month and each client's layout looks a bit different.

For a single client, each file they send will be the same.

But each client has their own layout.

Is there a good service around that I can setup conversion templates?

Would be great if we can setup a template for each client and the file gets run through the template and arrives happily in our standardised layout.

I haven't managed to find one but no doubt I'm just using the wrong search terms


  👤 bhavikchavda Accepted Answer ✓
The data import solution can help!

You can check out https://impler.io/ it covers many of the features you mention and you can extend its functionality as well like converting first/last to fullname. Your problems related to edge cases, configuration, and support will be resolved automatically with it.

It's open source at https://github.com/implerhq/impler.io/

I'm a co-founder of it and if you create a feature request for something you want, I will happily cover it.


👤 ssss11
Is VBA still a thing in excel? You could have a function per client and just run the correct one to format it.

Or using python or your choice of language to read .csv files and modify..

It may be overkill but n8n is a process automation tool (open source, self hosted) - give it input, run an action, get output. I’m sure you could do it in that.


👤 wizzerking
Me being a software engineer I would write this in python. Each python file would named for the client and produce either a text or rtf, or docx. file.

👤 slater
Can you provide a few examples of these different files?