Comma-separated values (CSV) is a data format used for representing tabular data, consisting of series of strings separated by commas. It is used to store tabular data represented as plain text in a readable format, often for transfer between systems.
It is one of the major forms of delimiter-separated values (DSV), alongside other popular formats such as tab-separated values (TSV) and pipe-delimited formats. CSV files are widely used for data exchange over the Internet due to their flexibility.
CSV is a plain text file type, meaning that the alignments, fonts, and binary values are all unimportant. A CSV file consists of any number of records, separated by a line break, and each record is a series of fields, separated by commas. Unenclosed fields may contain comma and newline characters, which can be account for by the use of quote characters.
These files are extremely useful in the transfer of data between systems, and used in data analysis, manipulation, and presentation. For example, they can be used to transfer data from relational databases to spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel. They are also often used for bulk imports and exports between large databases and applications.
Due to its ubiquity and flexibility, CSV files are used to store many different types of data. Fields may contain text, numbers, Boolean values, or dates/times. While applications may provide options to control some CSV formatting, there are no strict specifications that dictate how the data is stored.
