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Concept
Delimiter-separated values
Summary
Formats that use delimiter-separated values (also DSV) store two-dimensional arrays of data by separating the values in each row with specific delimiter characters. Most database and spreadsheet programs are able to read or save data in a delimited format. Due to their wide support, DSV files can be used in data exchange among many applications.
A delimited text file is a used to store data, in which each line represents a single book, company, or other thing, and each line has fields separated by the delimiter.
Compared to the kind of that uses spaces to force every field to the same width, a delimited file has the advantage of allowing field values of any length.
Any character may be used to separate the values, but the most common delimiters are the comma, tab, and colon. The vertical bar (also referred to as pipe) and space are also sometimes used. Column headers are sometimes included as the first line, and each subsequent line is a row of data. The lines are separated by newlines.
For example, the following fields in each record are delimited by commas, and each record by newlines:
"Date","Pupil","Grade"
"25 May","Bloggs, Fred","C"
"25 May","Doe, Jane","B"
"15 July","Bloggs, Fred","A"
"15 April","Muniz, Alvin ""Hank""","A"
Note the use of the double quote to enclose each field. This prevents the comma in the actual field value (Bloggs, Fred; Doe, Jane; etc.) from being interpreted as a field separator. This necessitates a way to "escape" the field wrapper itself, in this case the double quote; it is customary to double the double quotes actually contained in a field as with those surrounding "Hank". In this way, any ASCII text including newlines can be contained in a field.
ASCII includes several control characters that are intended to be used as delimiters. They are: , 29 for Group Separator, 30 for Record Separator, and 31 for Unit Separator. Use of these characters has not achieved widespread adoption; some systems have replaced their control properties with more accepted controls such as CR/LF and TAB.
Official source
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