RE: CSV file and the delimiter

Booth,

A field with quotes around it is alpha.  Even if all it has inside it is
numbers.

So to answer your question, "-$1,000,000.00" will be interpreted as a
string...not a number.

Bob

> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Booth Martin
> Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 9:37 PM
> To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: CSV file and the delimiter
> 
> 
> I'd be interested in some feedback on building CSV files.
> 
> When one uses the comma delimiter one must deal with the possibility of
> embedded commas within the character data.   Enclosing character fields in
> matched quotes will deal with that, but what happens if you enclose all
> fields in matching quotes, even numeric fields?
> 
> Will Excel accept a numeric column as numeric, even if its in quotes?
> Would
> it understand that an edited numeric field  "-$1,000,000.00" is a negative
> number?
>