CSV and REV?

[Richard Gaskin]

Garrett Hylltun wrote:

> Alex Tweedly wrote:
>> My summary : If possible and practical, use TSV instead (tab separated 
>> values).
>> 
>> If it needs to be CVS, then find this thread in the archives. There's 
>> code in there to handle the more common cases, and there was some 
>> discussion on just how weird and varied the different versions of "csv" 
>> can be. If you want to skip the discussion and go straight to the code - 
>> see Richard Gaskin's posting in that thread on July 1st 2004
> 
> Greetings Alex,
> 
> Thanks for all the info.  Yes, I'd prefer to simply use TAB delimited 
> files since it's much easier to deal with in Rev, but I will still need 
> to implement the ability to open and save COMMA delimited files too.
> 
> And it sounds like everything I need is in those threads, so thanks a 
> bunch :-)

If you absolutely must support CSV, please consider joining a handful of 
us curmudgeons on a mission to save the world from the unnecessary 
horror that is CSV:  support for reads, but not for writes.

The last thing the world needs is yet another app keeping that 
half-baked format alive. :)

It was a crappy idea when it was created (how did it even survive more 
than two minutes in the first meeting where it was proposed?), and it 
just gets more self-evidently crappy every year that passes with more 
and more variant implementations polluting the datasphere.

I have an app that reads CSV but will export only in tab-delimited 
format -- and it will use the most sensible form I've seen yet: 
FileMaker Pro's, in which in-data returns are gracefully accommodated as 
ASCII 11, and any quotes in the file are only part of the data, never a 
delimiter.

Not long ago I had an opportunity to help contribute to a specification 
for a format for affiliate data feeds, and at its heart it's the FMP tab 
format.

So we have several million FMP users, plus a few thousand affiliate 
marketers, and now your customers too.  :)

Just as polio was once an epidemic so broad it was considered absurd to 
try to wipe it out, bit by bit we'll move forward toward a more sensible 
  world where good people need no longer suffer from effects of CSV.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com