CSV Full Form

What is the full form of CSV?

CSV stands for “Comma-separated Values”. The term CSV refers to a file that contains data in a tabular form. Each line of the CSV file depicts a data record having one or more than one field. The use of commas as a separator of data in different fields is the reason for its name as a file format. A CSV file stores data in the form of a table. The data can be text or numbers. Most of the time, these types of files are found in spreadsheets and databases.

This Story also Contains

1. What is the full form of CSV?
2. More information about CSV
3. Basic rules to follow
4. Advantages of a CSV file
5. Disadvantages of a CSV file

1. More information about CSV

It is a way to trade structured data among programs that cannot communicate with each other directly. As long as both programs support a CSV file, the data can be exchanged easily. For example, a file made and saved in Microsoft Excel as a CSV file can be opened and studied in Microsoft Outlook.

Every time a line is entered into the CSV file, an order of what kind of data is being inserted is to be maintained to maintain the integrity of the CSV file.

Suppose the order of a table receives price as the last argument then the price of some other item cannot be inserted as the first argument.

Even though the name of the extension is Comma-separated values, it does not always need to be a comma. This delimiter can also be a semicolon, space or any other character. The most commonly used delimiter is a comma.

One more thing to keep in mind is that an excel file can only be opened in Google Docs or Excel but a CSV file can be edited by any text editor.

2. Basic rules to follow

A certain set of rules has to be kept in mind while inserting data into a CSV file.

1. A CSV file does not require any special character to terminate a line.

2. All records that are being entered in the file should have the same number of fields as well as the same order.

3. Adjacent fields should be separated with a comma or any choice of delimiter of the user.

4. Any field can be quoted but the fields which have a value with more than a single word are necessary to put in quotes.

2000, Maruti, E350, “Super, comfortable truck”

5. Fields that contain a line break must be quoted.

2000, Maruti, E350, “Super,

comfortable”

An example of how it looks inside the file-

3. Advantages of a CSV file

CSV files have some advantages over other files and file formats.

1. It is very easy to create, read and manage CSV files.

2. A CSV file can be edited in any file editor such as Notepad or Wordpad.

3. CSV is safe and no changes are made to it by itself.

4. The column headers are needed to be written only once.

5. Importing a CSV file is very easy.

4. Disadvantages of a CSV file

There are a few disadvantages too with CSV files.

1. It gets difficult for users to enter data which is a little complex. Only the basic data can be entered efficiently.

2. It gets difficult to use any special character in data. There is no support for that.

3. There is no distinction between NULL and Quotes which creates a problem while importing CSV into SQL.

4. Binary data cannot be represented efficiently.