Handling Semicolons in CSV to Prevent Splitting Across Cells in Go

Technical Discussion
1

I am generating a CSV file in a Go HTTP handler and sending it as a response. Some of my text fields contain semicolons (;), which causes issues when opening the file in applications like Excel. The data is getting split into multiple cells instead of appearing in a single cell.

For example, in my case:

  • The name field contains google;gmail
  • The URL field contains https://www.goo;gle.com/

Here’s my current Go code:

func routeReferencesCrossrefDownloadPost(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	var req DownloadRequest
	if err := json.NewDecoder(r.Body).Decode(&req); err != nil {
		fmt.Println("JSON Decode Error:", err)
		http.Error(w, "Invalid request", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	w.Header().Set("Content-Type", "text/csv")
	w.Header().Set("Content-Disposition", `attachment; filename="search_items.csv"`)

	writer := csv.NewWriter(w)
	defer writer.Flush()

	writer.Write([]string{"#", "Name", "URL"})

	name := "google;gmail"
	URL := "https://www.goo;gle.com/"
	for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
		writer.Write([]string{
			fmt.Sprintf("%d", i+1),
			name,
			URL,
		})
	}
}

The semicolon in name and URL is causing the text to split across multiple cells instead of staying within one. I would prefer not to change any CSV settings in system. If I wrap values in double quotes ("), I should not see them explicitly in the CSV file when opened.

How can I ensure that values containing semicolons remain in the same cell without requiring the user to modify any settings in their CSV viewer?

2

It seems you are using semicolon as field separator. Try using comma as field separator (I am not sure but I think it is used by default)