TSV and CSV

["Björn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil>]

Randy Brukardt wrote:
> "Bj�rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message
> news:bGXwe.141215$dP1.494536@newsc.telia.net...
>>I consider text/tab-separated-values a standard format. Whether it's
>>well-known is debatable. The definition is here:
>>http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/tab-separated-values
> 
> Never heard of this one. It seems like the world's worst choice for a file
> format, since the first thing any decent text tool will do is discard any
> tabs.

Well, such a tool isn't the right tool for manipulating TSV files. As 
always, use the right tool for the job.

The only tool I can think of right now that discards tabs is a web 
browser, and that's when it thinks the content type is text/html.

> I'm much more familiar with CSV files

CSV works as long as there are no commas in the data fields, but commas 
can occur in text fields, and comma is also the decimal sign in large 
parts of the world (and preferred in ISO documents, I hear). TSV works 
in these cases, as there's usually no need to allow tabs in the fields. 
(If you find that you want tabs inside the data fields, then it's 
probably time to look for a more sophisticated file format � perhaps XML 
based.)

-- 
Bj�rn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu