Ignition v7.9: Exporting dataset to CSV file, large numbers being made into sig fig

Question

I have a data set where product numbers are quite large, when being exported they're being made into sig fig (E+...).

I can resolve this by converting the columns affected to a text data type prior to exporting but I cannot find a way ignition v7.9 supports.

Here is what I have currently:

# Create a variable that references the data set
component = event.source.parent.getComponent('table')

data = component.data



# Use system.dataset.toCSV to turn the formatted dataset into a CSV string.
csv = system.dataset.toCSV(data)
 
# Use system.file.saveFile to have the user find a directory to write to.
filePath = system.file.saveFile(fileName, "csv", "Comma Separated Values")
 
# Check the value of filePath to make sure the user picked a path before
# attempting to write.
if filePath:
    system.file.writeFile(filePath, csv)

note that the format cannot be fixed in excel, cannot convert to a string, the string remains as E+...

Answer 1

I don't have any experience on Ignition, since it is Python scripting embedded in Ignition and I cannot find out how to re-test my thought, but I can give you some advices.

• CSV is not Excel: To review the CSV, you should open it as plain text, such as notepad to get the pure format, I believe that CSV file from toCSV function remain the number as well, whereas excel would make a bit different due to large number

If you want to overview it via Excel, it could achieve by several ways:

• Try toExcel 8.0 onward or exportExcel 7.9 backward: https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC79/system.dataset.exportExcel https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC80/system.dataset.toExcel
• Append special character for that number, typically is ': '123456789123456789
• Find alternative ways of CSV export with custom format supported, it would be a double quote surrounded "123456", "my string here"

My recommendation is your code is fine, no need to change, just to view it as notepad, notepad++

Answer 2

I know ignition quite well, and unfortunately, you will have to do the string conversion yourself, but even so, it can be done concisely:

data = system.dataset.toDataSet(system.dataset.getColumnHeaders(component.data), 
    [[str(component.data.getValueAt(row, column)) 
        for column in range(component.data.getColumnCount())] 
        for row in range(component.data.getRowCount())])

Since ignition uses an older version of jython, it is possible that you will want to use unicode( instead of str( if you are in a country that uses special characters and there is a chance that those characters could be in your dataset.