Re: csv extension/feature requests: new options for field separator different from default ', ' and skip=N to skip first N lines
Simon Slavin <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.db.sqlite.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
On 4 Feb 2020, at 12:18pm, Robert M. Münch <[email protected]> wrote: > - sep=';': field separator character (different from default ',') If you provide this facility, please don't add it to anything called 'csv' since the 'c' stands for 'comma'. For those playing along at home, csv files using semi-colon are a result of a bug in Excel. Windows has a setting for a 'list separator'. The two most usual values are ',' and ';'. The CSV export filter in Excel takes its separator from this field rather than always using a comma, because it was written by someone who wasn't aware of, didn't understand, or was intentionally trying to disrupt the standard. Decades after being told about the bug, Microsoft hasn't fixed it. There are a couple of other errors in Excel's CSV filters including how strings are quoted and how a blank value differs from a zero-length string. The best way I've seen to handle this was to add a new filter to your software, similar to 'csv', called something like 'exceltext' which did things the Excel way. _______________________________________________ sqlite-users mailing list [email protected] http://mailinglists.sqlite.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users