Comma-Separated Values (CSV) is the universal interchange standard for data analysis. However, because the CSV specification (RFC 4180) is loosely implemented across software systems, delimiter mismatches, regional decimal differences, and character encoding errors are extraordinarily common.
1. Delimiter Types: Comma vs Semicolon vs Tab vs Pipe
Standard US/UK CSV: Uses a standard comma (`,`) as the field separator.
European / Regional CSV: Countries that use commas as decimal separators (e.g. `12,50 €`) default to semicolons (`;`) as the column delimiter.
TSV & PSV: Tab-Separated Values (`\t`) and Pipe-Separated Values (`|`) are often used when textual fields contain commas.
💡 VisualizeMyData’s client-side parser automatically detects `,`, `;`, `\t`, and `|` delimiters dynamically in your browser memory.
2. Encoding Conflicts (UTF-8, UTF-8 with BOM & ANSI)
If currency symbols (`₹`, `€`, `¥`), accented characters (`é`, `ñ`), or Asian/Arabic glyphs render as garbled question marks or `é` (mojibake), your file is encoded in ANSI or Windows-1252 instead of UTF-8.
Fix: When exporting from Excel, always select CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv) rather than legacy CSV format.
3. Quoting Fields Containing Commas
If a cell value contains a comma (e.g. `Acme Corp, Inc.`), RFC 4180 requires wrapping the entire field in double quotes: `"Acme Corp, Inc."`. If the field contains a literal quote, it must be escaped with double quotes: `"12"" Screen"`.
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