CSV writer quotes setting for string value starting with zero

KNIME Analytics Platform
#1

Hi,

I am new to KNIME and hoping if someone can help with my question below:

I have a column of employeeID where all of them starts with zero, e.g 00000123456 (set as String at FIle reader because setting to Integer removes all the 0s) .
I used the default settings for the csv writer where the left quote is " and the right quote is " and applied to non-numerical only. 

The preview table looks good and export is successful. But when I tried to open the csv file with Excel, it has "intelligently" converted the string to integer and all the 0s are lost ( ID = 123456).

I am wondering if there is any node or settings i can do at the KNIME workflow so that i can keep all the 0s when I open the exported csv file with Excel?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thank you very much.

#2

Hi Ankey,

puh, this is an Excel problem of course. You can use the XLS Writer (in our extension) I tried it and the number was interpreted correctly.

Or you write an apostrophe (e.g. with the String Manipulation node) in front of the number. Than Excel knows its a string.

Best, Iris

#3

Hi Iris, 

Thank you for the suggestion, i guess i will go ahead with the apostrophe since my output file exceeds 65k rows. 

Thank you again and have a nice day~

Regards,

Ankey