Comma-separated values

Comma-separated values (CSV) is a format that uses commas to separate values. A CSV file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text, where each line of the file typically represents one data record. Each record consists of the same number of fields, and these are separated by commas in the CSV file. If the field delimiter itself may appear within a field, fields can be surrounded with quotation marks . The CSV file format is one type of delimiter-separated file format. Delimiters frequently used include the comma, tab, space, and semicolon. Delimiter-separated files are often given a ".csv" even when the field separator is not a comma. Many applications or libraries that consume or produce CSV files have options to specify an alternative delimiter . The lack of adherence to the CSV standard RFC 4180 necessitates the support for a variety of CSV formats in data input software. Despite this drawback, CSV remains widespread in data applications and is widely supported by a variety of software, including common spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel. Benefits cited in favor of CSV include human readability and the simplicity of the format. CSV is a common data exchange format that is widely supported by consumer, business, and scientific applications. Among its most common uses is moving tabular data between programs that natively operate on incompatible (often proprietary or undocumented) formats. For example, a user may need to transfer information from a database program that stores data in a proprietary format, to a spreadsheet that uses a completely different format. Most database programs can export data as CSV most spreadsheet programs can read CSV data, allowing CSV to be used as an intermediate format when transferring data from a database to a spreadsheet. CSV is also used for storing data. Common data science tools such as Pandas include the option to export data to CSV for long term storage.