CSV
Comma-separated values: a plain text file format in which each line is a row and commas separate the values in it.
CSV stores text and nothing else. It carries no data types, and nothing in the file states its encoding, so each program that opens it has to guess, and the guesses differ.
Where it comes up
- Line breaks inside cellsA cell contains a line break, so one record can spill across several lines of the file.
- Identifiers that lost their leading zerosA code that starts with zero, such as a postal code or account number, was read as a number and the zeros were dropped.
- Numbers stored as textA column of quantities contains symbols, separators, or words that stop software reading it as numbers.
See also
- DelimiterThe character that separates values: the comma between fields in a CSV file, or the semicolon between items in a list packed into one cell.
- Flat fileA plain file that holds one table, usually one record per line, with no links to other tables. A CSV export is the most familiar example.
- EncodingThe rule that maps the bytes in a file to characters. Reading a file with the wrong encoding turns accented letters and symbols into nonsense.