Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - Small enhancement request to fuel log export

Hi Darin,

As always, I appreciate the effort and time that you've put into this site. In particular, I really do like the fuel log feature and the fact that you provide a way to export the log to my favorite spreadsheet program (e.g. Excel).

One problem I'm running into when exporting is that, because I tend to use line breaks to separate my comments, every new paragraph ends up as a new cell in Excel. For instance, on the http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-log.php?do=view_log_stripped&vehicleid=xxxx page, if I have this:

2011-01-06

850.8

16.51

$3.559

51.53

Second tank on the Jetta.

Mostly commuting. Taking surface roads for the commuting, which gives me a round trip fe average of 55 to 60mpg.

Had a few longer trips which required freeway. Freeway fe is closer to 30mpg.

Using ScanGauge II, which is helping to tune my driving style with the TDI. Pulse & Glide (with engine on) works very well. I don't do Engine Off primarily because of the power steering... if I am trying to turn (even slightly) with engine off and then start the engine, the kick of the power steering unit really causes the steering to 'over turn' which is a little scary.

No fe mods other than the LRR tires set to 50psi.

If I cut & paste this into Excel, it looks like this:

2011-01-06	850.8	16.51	$3.559	51.53	Second tank on the Jetta.
Mostly commuting. Taking surface roads for the commuting, which gives me a round trip fe average of 55 to 60mpg.
Had a few longer trips which required freeway. Freeway fe is closer to 30mpg.
Using ScanGauge II, which is helping to tune my driving style with the TDI. Pulse & Glide (with engine on) works very well. I don't do Engine Off primarily because of the power steering... if I am trying to turn (even slightly) with engine off and then start the engine, the kick of the power steering unit really causes the steering to 'over turn' which is a little scary.
No fe mods other than the LRR tires set to 50psi.

I think this could fixed with a relatively minor enhancement that would be very helpful for folks that do fuel log details with multiple paragraphs (like I do)... when you have time in your otherwise busy schedule, of course!

According to the (loose) standards for CSV files, any field containing line breaks should be double-quoted at the beginning and end of the field. Additionally, any double-quotes within that field should be double-double-quoted (e.g. if there is a word with "quotes" in the field, the CSV should ""quote"" the word).

Reference: Comma-separated values - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; Section "Toward standardization", relevant text:

Quote:

Any field may be quoted (with double quotes).
Fields containing a line-break, double-quote, and/or commas should be quoted. (If they are not, the file will likely be impossible to process correctly).
A (double) quote character in a field must be represented by two (double) quote characters.

So at least on the view_log_stripped page, having the Details field wrapped in double-quotes and replacing existing double-quotes with double double-quotes would make the import into Excel a bit easier. I know it helps since I typically pull the view_log_stripped contents into a text editor, add the missing quotes, and then copy & paste the results of that into Excel, which allows everything to fit into the cells as expected (that is, keeping the multi-line Details fields all in one cell as it should be).

Appreciate your help on this!