From: David King Landrith <dave@...>
Date: 2003-02-28T01:13:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Regexp help: Parsing a CSV file

It seems to me that there has been a lot of talk of sample CSV files 
assuming that the definition indicates comma separated values, when the 
problem is actually a whole lot more general.  CSV often stands for 
character separated values, which is to say pretty much any delimited 
format (as opposed to, say, a mark-up format)

That said, delimited formats generally contain the following types of 
characters relevant to delimiting:

field separation character(s) -- usually comma or tab
record separation characters(s) -- usually /n (UNIX), /r (MAC), or /r/n 
(WIN)
quote character(s) -- usually " or ' or none
escape character(s) -- usually " or ' or \ or none

This allows the parser to work on all types of files.  For example, 
many files use carot (^) as the quote character and pipe (|) as a 
record separator.

At any rate, am I off base here? or is the current discussion of CSV 
files too narrow in its scope?

-------------------------------------------------------
David King Landrith
   (w) 617.227.4469x213
   (h) 617.696.7133

One useless man is a disgrace, two
are called a law firm, and three or more
become a congress   -- John Adams
-------------------------------------------------------
public key available upon request