CSV to YAML example

# The following code uses the the example on wikipedia:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values
# Program has been tested with ruby 1.8.7
# I apologise for the Hungarian notation, but describing
# the classes involved is appropriate for this example,
# since it's about converting between different data structures.

require "csv"
require "yaml"

# This is the example given in wikipedia
cars_in_csv = "Year,Make,Model,Length
1997,Ford,E350,2.34
2000,Mercury,Cougar,2.38"

# The parser just converts these into an array of CSV cells
array_of_csv_cells = CSV.parse cars_in_csv

# The first CVS row are the headings
headings = array_of_csv_cells.shift.map {|heading| heading.to_s}

# Convert the array of CSV cells into an Array of Hashes
cars_in_ruby_structures = array_of_csv_cells.map do |cells|
    hsh = {}
    (cells.map {|cell| cell.to_s}).each_with_index do |cell_str, index|
        hsh[headings[index]] = cell_str
    end
    hsh
end

# Then you convert to yaml
cars_in_yaml = cars_in_ruby_structures.to_yaml

# So you can see what the yaml looks like
puts cars_in_yaml