After several years of silence, I received maintainership on Text::CSV_XS from Jochen Wiedman.

I uploaded Text-CSV_XS-0.25 to CPAN today, but I'd still like to get feedback. I'm also open to new extensions now and comments on what I did so far.

Here's the ne ChangeLog entry:

2007-05-07  H.Merijn Brand   <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl> (0.25)

        * Merijn got the maintainership
        - code reformat and code cleanup
        - renamed internal (Encode, Decode) to (Combine, Parse) to
          prevent misinterpretation with upcoming Unicode changes
          and possible name clashes
        - added pod check (and fixed pod)
        - added pod coverage and small additions to the pod.
          More to do in this area
        - renamed test to fixate the sequence
        - Added t/50_utf8.t
        - tests now use Test::More
          . Makefile.PL requires Test::More
        - checked proclaimed version compatibility
          . 5.9.x-64int     works @31159
          . 5.8.x-64int-dor works @31162
          . 5.8.0-dor       works
          . 5.6.2           works
          . 5.005.04        works
          . 5.004.05        fails
        - 5.005 is now prerequisite
        - Added missing info in docs for new ()
        - Added meta_info () method and docs
        - Added keep_meta_info in new ()
        - Added t/15_flags.t
        - Added test_cover make target
        - Added test for error_input ()
        - Added tests for fields () and meta_info () before parse ()
        - Added tests for ->types () as method
        - Added tests for deleting types (coverage now over 99%)
        - Added is_quoted (), is_binary () and tests
        - Added COPYRIGHT section to pod
        - Added the parse example from the pod to test.pl
        - Added accessor methods for internals: quote_char () et all
        - Added tests for the new accessor methods
        - Added always_quote to the missing places in the doc and in n
+ew ()
        - Changed the tests to use the accessors instead of the hash k
+eys
          except for the ->{types} and ->{_types}
        - Moved test.pl to examples/speed.pl
[download]

And a short summary of what is new:

            $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ();

           is equivalent to

            $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ({
                quote_char     => '"',
                escape_char    => '"',
                sep_char       => ';,',
                eol            => '',
                always_quote   => 0,
                binary         => 0,
                keep_meta_info => 0,
                });

           For all of the above mentioned flags, there is an accessor 
+method
           available where you can inquire for the current value, or c
+hange
           the value

            my $quote = $csv->quote_char;
            $csv'>binary (1);    
       :
       :
       meta_info
            @flags = $csv->meta_info ();

           This object function returns the flags of the input to "com
+bine ()"
           or the flags of the resultant decomposed fields of "parse (
+)",
           whichever was called more recently.

           For each field, a meta_info field will hold flags that tell
           something about the field returned by the "fields ()" metho
+d or
           passed to the "combine ()" method. The flags are bitwise 'o
+r'd like:

           0x0001
               The field was quoted.

           0x0002
               The field was binary.

           See the "is_*** ()" methods below.

       is_quoted
             my $quoted = $csv->is_quoted ($column_idx);

           Where $column_idx is the (zero-based) index of the column i
+n the
           last result of "parse ()".

           This returns a true value if the data in the indicated colu
+mn was
           enclused in "quote_char" quotes. This might be important fo
+r data
           where ",20070108," is to be treated as a numeric value, and
+ where
           ","20070108"," is explicitely marked as character string da
+ta.

       is_binary
             my $binary = $csv->is_binary ($column_idx);

           Where $column_idx is the (zero-based) index of the column i
+n the
           last result of "parse ()".

           This returns a true value if the data in the indicated colu
+mn
           contained any byte in the range [\x00-\x08,\x10-\x1F,\x7F-\
+xFF]


       An example for parsing CSV lines:

         use Text::CSV_XS;

         my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ({ keep_meta_info => 1, binary =>
+ 1 });

         my $sample_input_string =
             qq{"I said, ""Hi!""",Yes,"",2.34,,"1.09","\x{20ac}",};
         if ($csv->parse ($sample_input_string)) {
             my @field = $csv->fields;
             foreach my $col (0 .. $#field) {
                 my $quo = $csv->is_quoted ($col) ? $csv->{quote_char}
+ : "";
                 printf "%2d: %s%s%s\n", $col, $quo, $field[$col], $qu
+o;
                 }
             }
         else {
             my $err = $csv->error_input;
             print "parse () failed on argument: ", $err, "\n";
             }
[download]

As this is probably one of the modules that is used in an enourmous range of applications, not breaking things is essential. I think I've well managed to keep the API fully backward compliant, but please report any failure ASAP.

This may sound like a simple plug for a module, but it is just extreme precaution hoping not to break anything and still manage to extend the module to the modern world.

Please enjoy!

Edit: g0n - replaced pre tags with code tags

Edit: cbu - replaced the ampersand notations