I'm using this json2scv package parsing my data (sample json data is described in below code)

I am trying to generate a CSV file in my nodejs application using the code below:

If I open the file in Excel, then I get £ wherever a £ sign should appear.

var json2csv = require('json2csv');
var fs = require('fs');
var fields = ['car', 'price', 'color'];
var myCars = [
  {
    "car": "Audi",
    "price": "£40000",
    "color": "blue"
  }, {
    "car": "BMW",
    "price": "£35000",
    "color": "black"
  }, {
    "car": "Porsche",
    "price": "£60000",
    "color": "green"
  }
];
var csvStr = json2csv({ data: myCars, fields: fields, del: ',' });

fs.writeFile('file.csv', csvStr, { encoding: 'utf8' },function(err) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('file saved');
});

Any Thoughts ?

Thanks.

I'm using this json2scv package parsing my data (sample json data is described in below code)

I am trying to generate a CSV file in my nodejs application using the code below:

If I open the file in Excel, then I get £ wherever a £ sign should appear.

var json2csv = require('json2csv');
var fs = require('fs');
var fields = ['car', 'price', 'color'];
var myCars = [
  {
    "car": "Audi",
    "price": "£40000",
    "color": "blue"
  }, {
    "car": "BMW",
    "price": "£35000",
    "color": "black"
  }, {
    "car": "Porsche",
    "price": "£60000",
    "color": "green"
  }
];
var csvStr = json2csv({ data: myCars, fields: fields, del: ',' });

fs.writeFile('file.csv', csvStr, { encoding: 'utf8' },function(err) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('file saved');
});

Any Thoughts ?

Thanks.

• javascript
• node.js
• file
• csv
• encoding

• 1 You have a text encoding issue. You're saving UTF-8 but at some point this is being read as ISO-8859-1 (or similar). Try adding a BOM at the start of the file, saving in 8859-1, or explicitly specifying the encoding on loading. – Richard Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 8:16
• @Richard adding BOM "\ufeff" and using encoding "utf16le" solved the issue. Thanks for your feedback thou. – narainsagar Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 8:26

2 Answers 2

I have got the solution from this answer and it's question thread: https://stackoverflow./a/27975629/5228251

UTF-8 Example:

fs.writeFile(someFilename, '\ufeff' + html, { encoding: 'utf8' }, function(err) {
   /* The actual byte order mark written to the file is EF BB BF */
}

UTF-16 Little Endian Example:

fs.writeFile(someFilename, '\ufeff' + html, { encoding: 'utf16le' }, function(err) {
   /* The actual byte order mark written to the file is FF FE */
}

After go through above answer and it's thread then I have modified my code like this:

• Changed delimeter option to "\t" instead of ","
• Prepended "\ufeff" to the csv string
• Changed encoding to use "utf16le" instead of "utf8"

Here's my updated code:

var json2csv = require('json2csv');
var fs = require('fs');
var fields = ['car', 'price', 'color'];
var myCars = [
  {
    "car": "Audi",
    "price": "£40000",
    "color": "blue"
  }, {
    "car": "BMW",
    "price": "£35000",
    "color": "black"
  }, {
    "car": "Porsche",
    "price": "£60000",
    "color": "green"
  }
];
var csvStr = json2csv({ data: myCars, fields: fields, del: '\t' });

fs.writeFile('file.csv', '\ufeff' + csvStr, { encoding: 'utf16le' },function(err) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log('file saved');
});

Hope this helps others.

in 2022 answer

(using changed), call Parser class from json2csv lib

const { Parser } = require('json2csv');

const myCars = [
  {
    "car": "Audi",
    "price": 40000,
    "color": "blue"
  }, {
    "car": "BMW",
    "price": 35000,
    "color": "black"
  }, {
    "car": "Porsche",
    "price": 60000,
    "color": "green"
  }
];

const json2csvParser = new Parser();
const csv = json2csvParser.parse(myCars);

console.log(csv);

With delimiter:

const json2csvParser = new Parser({ delimiter: '\t' });
const tsv = json2csvParser.parse(myCars);

With fields

const fields = ['carModel', 'price', 'colors'];
const json2csvParser = new Parser({ fields, transforms });
const csv = json2csvParser.parse(myCars);

More examples here