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by charliesome 2460 days ago
CSV as a format doesn't really exist. CSV is a family of similar but not always compatible data formats each with their own special rules and edge cases.

Note that the quote is talking about a well-specified CSV, not any CSV in general. A well-specified CSV would indeed be fairly easy to parse.
1 comments
rusk 2460 days ago
> CSV as a format doesn't really exist.

RFC-4180

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jstimpfle 2460 days ago
That was created after how many years of CSV in the wild? Nobody disagrees here that parsing CSV in practice is a horrible minefield with lots of manual adjustments.
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rusk 2459 days ago
RFC-4180 is dated 2005 - so your statement that a standard "doesn't exist" has been out of date for 14 years.

Yes of course there was no recognised standard before that. Just like before Greenwich Meantime there was no recognised standard for universal time coordination ...

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jstimpfle 2459 days ago
It's not my statement, and also please let's not split hairs but look at the actual situation in practice. (Also, RFC-4180 sucks. It only codifies a subset of existing - bad - practice).
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rusk 2459 days ago
Apologies for the misattribution.

The situation in practice is that when people want a “standard” way to do CSV, there is in fact a standard they can use, that does cover most sensible things you’ll want to do with CSV, and addresses the most common corner cases (eg delimeter in field) in a fairly sensible way.

You are free yet to make whatever proprietary extensions or otherwise, at the risk of losing compatibility just as you are with any other standard.

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