CSV (comma-separated values) is a common, relatively simple file format that is widely supported by consumer, business, and scientific applications. Among its most common uses is moving tabular data between programs that natively operate on incompatible (often proprietary and/or undocumented) formats. This works because so many programs support some variation of CSV at least as an alternative import/export format.

History

Comma-separated values are old technology and pre-date personal computers by more than a decade: the IBM Fortran (level G) compiler under OS/360 supported them in 1967.

General functionality

CSV formats are best used to represent sets or sequences of records in which each record has an identical list of fields. This corresponds to a single relation in a relational database, or to data (though not calculations) in a typical spreadsheet.

Basic rules

• CSV is a delimited data format that has fields/columns separated by the comma character and records/rows terminated by newlines.

• A CSV file does not require a specific character encoding, byte order, or line terminator format (some software does not support all line-end variations).

• A record ends at a line terminator. However, line-terminators can be embedded as data within fields, so software must recognize quoted line-separators (see below) in order to correctly assemble an entire record from perhaps multiple lines.

• All records should have the same number of fields, in the same order.

Related reading:

• IETF RFC 4180 :: Common Format and MIME Type for CSV Files

• Wikipedia CSV application support

• Wikipedia Comma-separated values

Comma-separated values is a common, relatively simple file format that is widely supported by consumer, business, and scientific applications. Among its most common uses is moving tabular data between programs that natively operate on incompatible (often proprietary and/or undocumented) formats. This works because so many programs support some variation of CSV at least as an alternative import/export format.

CSV formats are best used to represent sets or sequences of records in which each record has an identical list of fields. This corresponds to a single relation in a relational database, or to data (though not calculations) in a typical spreadsheet.

Basic rules

RFC 4180 attempts to standardize CSV, but many programs do not follow the standard strictly.

• CSV is a delimited data format that has fields/columns separated by the comma character and records/rows terminated by newlines.

• A CSV file does not require a specific character encoding, byte order, or line terminator format (some software does not support all line-end variations).

• A record ends at a line terminator. However, line-terminators can be embedded as data within fields, so software must recognize quoted line-separators (see below) in order to correctly assemble an entire record from perhaps multiple lines.

• All records should have the same number of fields, in the same order.

• Fields may be quoted, usually with double quotes, to allow literal commas to be represented.

CSV (comma-separated values) is a common, relatively simple file format that is widely supported by consumer, business, and scientific applications. Among its most common uses is moving tabular data between programs that natively operate on incompatible (often proprietary and/or undocumented) formats. This works because so many programs support some variation of CSV at least as an alternative import/export format.

History

Comma-separated values are old technology and pre-date personal computers by more than a decade: the IBM Fortran (level G) compiler under OS/360 supported them in 1967.

General functionality

CSV formats are best used to represent sets or sequences of records in which each record has an identical list of fields. This corresponds to a single relation in a relational database, or to data (though not calculations) in a typical spreadsheet.

Basic rules

• CSV is a delimited data format that has fields/columns separated by the comma character and records/rows terminated by newlines.

• A CSV file does not require a specific character encoding, byte order, or line terminator format (some software does not support all line-end variations).

• A record ends at a line terminator. However, line-terminators can be embedded as data within fields, so software must recognize quoted line-separators (see below) in order to correctly assemble an entire record from perhaps multiple lines.

• All records should have the same number of fields, in the same order.

Related reading:

• IETF RFC 4180 :: Common Format and MIME Type for CSV Files

• Wikipedia CSV application support

• Wikipedia Comma-separated values