[GitHub] [commons-csv] lbruun commented on pull request #51: [CSV-253] Handle absent values in input

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lbruun commented on pull request #51:
URL: https://github.com/apache/commons-csv/pull/51#issuecomment-743715066


   @divijvaidya. The PR is what it is and is complete. However, since time has now passed the PR now has a minor merge conflict. Also my changes to Javadoc states (for this new feature) "since 1.8" which seemed reasonable at the time because it was the the (then) upcoming release and I was hoping the maintainers would include my PR for that release. Version 1.8 has since then been released _without_ this PR so that would need to be changed in the PR.
   
   Anyway, my main problem is that I haven't been able to explain to maintainers of this library why this is a missing feature in the library. In short why the library should be able to distinguish between (when parsing):
   
   ```text
   545-03-1234,"","Doe"
   ```
   
   and 
   ```text
   545-03-1234,,"Doe"
   ```
   
   ..and why the existing feature, `org.apache.commons.csv.CSVFormat.nullString`, doesn't address this problem. You can see the explanation and discussion [here](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CSV-253?focusedCommentId=16962105&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-16962105).
   
   Note that once maintainer(s) of the library agree to the problem being present then the next discussion is obviously _how_ to address it. My suggestion in this PR favors strict backwards compatibility (no breaking change) : I simply introduce a new attribute rather than changing what the existing attribute `nullString` does. This will probably be confusing for users of the library, but the alternative - breaking change - is worse IMHO.
   
   I'll be glad to update the PR if I thought it had chance of being accepted.
   
   


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