CSV is the biggest pile of nuisance you'd never expect from a seemingly simple data format.
- Header line or none?
- "\n" or "\r\n"?
- Is there a newline at the last line? How about two?
- Escape quotes with doubling or backslash? How about both in the same file? How about both, inconsistently, in different fields? How about quotes including a newline and commas?
- Strings always quoted? Only if necessary? Is ,, a null or an empty string, or an error?
- How about mixed line lengths? Are missing trailing entries nulls? How about multiple data types in a file, with the first field being type, and line length only fixed per type?
I have generally found "TSV with a rule that data cannot represent tabs or newlines, period" as vastly superior.
- Header line or none?
- "\n" or "\r\n"?
- Is there a newline at the last line? How about two?
- Escape quotes with doubling or backslash? How about both in the same file? How about both, inconsistently, in different fields? How about quotes including a newline and commas?
- Strings always quoted? Only if necessary? Is ,, a null or an empty string, or an error?
- How about mixed line lengths? Are missing trailing entries nulls? How about multiple data types in a file, with the first field being type, and line length only fixed per type?
I have generally found "TSV with a rule that data cannot represent tabs or newlines, period" as vastly superior.