Re: CSV file and the delimiter

"...needs a colon..."  That's the crux of it.  Its not a matter of what is
needed, but its a matter of what other people do with and to  the data.  

I want to find a simple way to never get tricked with embedded commas,
apostrophes, colons, or other special characters.  Enclosing every field
including numeric fields in paired quotes will do that, and I have done that
in the past with success or at least I thought it was with success.  I would
prefer to use the comma delimiter as it is the most widely used and
understood on the Dark Side.

However something that was said the other day makes me think I may have
screwed up.  I know, I know. its hard to believe I'd screw up. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Sunday, April 20, 2003 15:12:03
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: CSV file and the delimiter
 
Booth,
 
I don't use CSV files much, but I do send a lot of data in a string to a PC
and back via sockets. I use a colon (yeah, I know...it's a crappy choice,
but what'ya gonna do? :-) Sorry! Couldn't resist!)....as the delimiter.
I've yet to have text that actually needs an embedded colon in it so the
colon makes a great delimiter for parsing on both sides of the equation.
 
 
Shannon O'Donnell
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Booth Martin" <Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 9:37 PM
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?
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Booth Martin http://www.MartinVT.com
> Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> -------------------------------------------------------