[whydoyoucare]

I am not clear what "manipulate" means here -- what is the author trying to do with the comma separated values? FWIW, I can accomplish csv manipulation using a handful of Unix utilities: sed, awk, cut, and call it a day.

[zaphirplane]

The text in a column can be quoted and inside the quotes there can be escaped quotes or commas.

It requires a lot of sed awk skills to merge two columns or delete a column. If at all possible

[grumpy-cowboy]

Yes, the "CSV road to hell":

- comma separated, nothing escaped (crash when 1 column contains a comma)

- comma separated, quotes around all elements, quotes not escaped

- comma separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes not escaped

- comma separated, quotes around some elements, quotes not escaped

- comma separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes not escaped

- comma separated, quotes around all elements, quotes escaped (using '')

- comma separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes escaped (using "")

- comma separated, quotes around some elements, quotes escaped (using '')

- comma separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes escaped (using "")

- comma separated, quotes around all elements, quotes escaped (using \')

- comma separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes escaped (using \")

- comma separated, quotes around some elements, quotes escaped (using \')

- comma separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes escaped (using \")

And the Microsoft format (where comma == semi-colon):

- semi-colon separated, nothing escaped (crash when 1 column contains a comma)

- semi-colon separated, quotes around all elements, quotes not escaped

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes not escaped

- semi-colon separated, quotes around some elements, quotes not escaped

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes not escaped

- semi-colon separated, quotes around all elements, quotes escaped (using '')

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes escaped (using "")

- semi-colon separated, quotes around some elements, quotes escaped (using '')

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes escaped (using "")

- semi-colon separated, quotes around all elements, quotes escaped (using \')

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes escaped (using \")

- semi-colon separated, quotes around some elements, quotes escaped (using \')

- semi-colon separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes escaped (using \")

And I'm not talking about some weird custom CSV variants to support multi-lines for example or any other "I want to fit a circle in a square" mentality.

I don't know why people doesn't simply create TSV file (Tab-separated). No characters espacing mess. MUCHHH easier to parse.

EDIT: Formatting

[ekianjo]

This is the best answer if the csv file is more or less standard.

[uxcn]

awk, sed, cut, etc... are excellent as long as the format is regular and you only need to process the file once