[p5.js 2.0 Bug Report]: saveTable() doesn't escape double quotes in CSV, round-trip corrupts data

[avinxshKD]

Most appropriate sub-area of p5.js?

• Accessibility
• Color
• Core/Environment/Rendering
• Data
• DOM
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• Math
• Typography
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• Other (specify if possible)

p5.js version

2.x (main)

Web browser and version

any

Operating system

any

Steps to reproduce this

saveTable() wraps values containing commas in quotes (that got fixed in an old PR), but it never escapes " characters inside those values. So any cell with both a comma and a quote produces malformed CSV.

function setup() {
  let t = new p5.Table();
  t.addColumn('name');
  t.addColumn('note');

  let r = t.addRow();
  r.setString('name', 'thing');
  r.setString('note', 'He said "yes, go ahead"');

  saveTable(t, 'out.csv');
}

Output:

name,note
thing,"He said "yes, go ahead""

That middle " is unescaped. Most CSV parsers (Excel, Python csv, loadTable itself) will choke on it or misread the row.

RFC 4180 says inner quotes must be doubled. Should be:

name,note
thing,"He said ""yes, go ahead"""

Also: headers with commas or quotes are never escaped either. And a newline inside a value will silently break row boundaries with no quoting at all.

loadTable handles all of this correctly on the way in. So load a valid CSV → save it back → file is now broken. Classic round-trip corruption.

The fix is one line per write call: escape " as "" before wrapping, and trigger quoting on " or \n too, not just ,.

[avinxshKD]

@ksen0 @davepagurek what do you think of this?? ready to go, just let me know

[ksen0]

Hi @apoorvdarshan , I really appreciate the enthusiasm, but in the future, please follow the contributor guidelines, and wait for approval and assignment before beginning work / filing PRs. There are several higher-priority tasks right now, so even though you made a PR, it may take some time to get to it. To avoid delays and duplicate work is one of the reasons behind the guidelines. Thanks for understanding!

EDIT: So sorry, tagged the wrong author. I meant to tag the PR author. Apologies!!

[avinxshKD]

Hey @ksen0 just to clarify, I haven't worked on this yet or raised a Pr, someone else picked it up. I raised this issue and was waiting for your heads up as always.

Same goes for #8552

[apoorvdarshan]

Hey @ksen0 @avinxshKD — apologies for jumping ahead here. I should have followed the contributing guidelines and waited for assignment before putting up the PR. Closing #8553 now. Sorry for the duplicate effort!

[ksen0]

So sorry @avinxshKD for tagging you wrongly! Thanks for the patience. I edited my comment above as well. Thanks for understanding @apoorvdarshan

[avinxshKD]

@ksen0 hey no worries at all, working on #8552 as asked, thanks