Subject: [apps-discuss] FYI: Proposed W3C WG -- "CSV on the Web"

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 17:52:51 +1000

(with my liaison hat on)

The W3C is considering starting new work around CSV and the Web;
  http://www.w3.org/2013/05/lcsv-charter.html

Since RFC4180 registers CSV (although it's only Informational), they've contacted us to make sure there isn't a conflict.

I don't think there is, but some people here might be interested in participating over there to some degree.

Cheers,

--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/

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From: Kevin Marks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 03:37:49 -0700

given that the "join" links are all TBD that could be hard.
My position is that csv should be deprecated in favour of the, as csv has
non-deterministic escaping rules.
On Aug 30, 2013 12:53 AM, "Mark Nottingham" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Since RFC4180 registers CSV (although it's only Informational), they've
> contacted us to make sure there isn't a conflict.
>
> _______________________________________________
> apps-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss
>

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From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 21:18:46 +1000

> given that the "join" links are all TBD that could be hard. 

It's a proposed charter; once they've started work, they'll have real, live links.

> My position is that csv should be deprecated in favour of the, as csv has non-deterministic escaping rules.
>

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From: Erik Wilde <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:51:06 -0700

hello kevin.

> has non-deterministic escaping rules.

1. it seems you forgot to say in favor of what. or is there a format 
called "the" (maybe "tab something...")? i may just be confused here...

2. if CSV is non-deterministic, shouldn't it be fixed? can it be fixed? 
i'd be interested to read more about the problems, because having 
something like it definitely is a good thing in terms of open data.

thanks and cheers,

dret.

-- 
erik wilde | mailto:[email-masked]  -  tel:+1-510-2061079 |
            | UC Berkeley  -  School of Information (ISchool) |
            | http://dret.net/netdret http://twitter.com/dret |

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From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 30 Aug 2013 19:37:41 -0000

>something like it definitely is a good thing in terms of open data.

The definition in RFC 4180 is fine, but CSV in the field doesn't
always agree with it.  Some writers quote with double quotes, some
with single quotes.  Quoted quotes are sometimes doubled "", or
sometimes escaped \".  There are CSV files where the fields are
separated with tabs or other stuff that is not commas.

In some CSV files the first line contains the names of the columns, in
some it's all data.

There are two directions a spec might take: normative to say that only
the 4180 flavor qualifies, or descriptive to try to describe all the
flavors seen in the wild and perhaps invent a way to identify the
flavor as part of the MIME type or something.

I entirely agree that anything you can say in CSV you can say better
in JSON, but CSV has been around too long and is too well entrenched
as a spreadsheet interface to ignore.

R's,
John