CSV Format Issues

Discussions revolve around the simplicity, parsing problems, and Excel-related pitfalls of CSV files, with defenses of CSV and suggestions for alternatives like TSV or JSON.

➡️ Stable 0.7x Databases
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Keywords

RFC CSV01 owasp.org JSON creativyst.com LF MUCH BOM CSV index.php csv comma separated excel quotes format escaped double data file

Sample Comments

Endy Oct 25, 2017 View on HN

What's wrong with pure CSV, again?

itohihiyt Oct 7, 2024 View on HN

What's wrong with CSV? I love me a CSV file.

comeonseriously Aug 19, 2021 View on HN

Or just use some other text format instead? CSV is supposed to be simple.

anothernewdude Aug 19, 2021 View on HN

If CSV is giving you such problems over the years, then I have no confidence in your opinion.

dtech Oct 6, 2020 View on HN

CSV predates Excel, and other CSV implementations don't have this behavior

ajsnigrutin Feb 28, 2023 View on HN

Hey! What's wrong with csv files?!

recursive Mar 27, 2025 View on HN

No. Excel's fault. Not CSV. There are plenty of busted CSV parsers (and serializers) too.

Twirrim Jun 8, 2016 View on HN

Or just not use CSV as a data transfer format :D

mulmen Oct 10, 2017 View on HN

The CSV format doesn't interpret anything, it's spreadsheet applications doing that.

grumpy-cowboy Nov 5, 2019 View on HN

Yes, the "CSV road to hell":- comma separated, nothing escaped (crash when 1 column contains a comma)- comma separated, quotes around all elements, quotes not escaped- comma separated, double-quotes around all elements, double-quotes not escaped- comma separated, quotes around some elements, quotes not escaped- comma separated, double-quotes around some elements, double-quotes not escaped- comma separated, quotes around all elements, quotes escaped (using ''