{"id":4575,"date":"2020-09-10T19:24:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T00:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=4575"},"modified":"2020-09-10T19:24:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T00:24:57","slug":"comma-delimited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=4575","title":{"rendered":"Comma Delimited"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the most useful tools are the simplest. I would argue that simplicity is often <em>why<\/em> those tools are the most useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The humble <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Comma-separated_values\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\".csv file (opens in a new tab)\">.csv file<\/a> is a good example of this. It may even, other than the question of character encoding, be one of the only things nearly all programmers can agree on. It&#8217;s almost up there with &#8220;bytes have eight bits.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">.CSV files, named for the traditional file extension dating back to the days of DOS, are just about as simple a data format as there is. CSV stands for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Comma-separated_valuess\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Comma Separated Values (opens in a new tab)\">Comma Separated Values<\/a> &#8212; and that&#8217;s just what these files are. Raw data, split into columns by commas and into rows by CR\/LF combinations (okay, this varies by system, too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although .csv files aren&#8217;t as flexible or self-documenting as modern formats such as JSON, they are both (generally) human-readable and very simple to programatically create and parse. Practically anything that works with data can export them, so they have become a significant lingua franca of data analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s not as flashy as XML, but there&#8217;s something to be said for a format that&#8217;s easily readable by desktops, microcontrollers, and humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>.csv files may not be flashy, but there&#8217;s almost nothing easier to use. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/?p=4575\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coding","category-tools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4626,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4575\/revisions\/4626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paleotechnologist.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}