DataFormats
Post #7492, on Nov 28, 2025 in TG
Devs Using CSV Delimiter as Fill Value and Seeing No Problem
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from the account 'Imposter' (@imposter_coding) on a dark background. The tweet reads: 'If you ever feel like you don't belong in IT, just remember there are devs with job experience who use the delimiter also as a fill value when creating a csv and don't see a problem with that.' The humor highlights a fundamental data engineering antipattern where developers use the same character (typically a comma) both as the CSV delimiter AND as a fill/default value in data fields, which completely breaks CSV parsing. This is the kind of basic mistake that would cause silent data corruption and drive anyone who has to consume the CSV absolutely insane
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Comments
20Comment deleted
This is the data engineering equivalent of using your house key as a toothpick -- technically it fits in the hole, but you're ruining everything
And how to do it correctly? Comment deleted
Wrap the cell content with quotes. If there are quoting inside cells, the are doubled E.g. Cell 1;"Big cell 2; Still ""this"" cell"; Cell 3 Comment deleted
you can set a custom delimiter, which isn't a part of any value, or do as jack suggested to do. Comment deleted
Can't u use something like: null, 0 or none? Comment deleted
well, yes. but then date will look like day0month0year 280110"2025" or (not sure a delimiter can consist of multiple characters, but assuming yes): daynullmonthnullyear 28null11null2025 I fail to see how does it make anything easier. Comment deleted
Wait, u talking about separator. From the meme I thought it's about fill value, that should fill some cells if there's no data Comment deleted
you can just omit data cell1,cell2,cell3 1,,3 no need to fill I thought they mean values itself Comment deleted
The issue with using commas in CSV appears when dealing with localised decimal values of countries which use comma as a decimal separator (instead of the dot) Comment deleted
Acceptable! Comment deleted
Acceptable! Comment deleted
Just wondering. I've never created csv files Comment deleted
Specifications? No. I will create my new CSV format! I'll spend a whole week then to implement my parser for it. Then I'll prove to you that my custom CSV format is bettter. Comment deleted
I had the same feeling, but then I recalled, that csv is a text format meant to be understood visually besides of technical parsing — and even so — there is no need to fill an empty value with some value — you can literally let it off to be empty. https://t.me/devs_chat/178318 Comment deleted
Isn't csv separated with ;? Comment deleted
Commas Comment deleted
Excel thinks different Comment deleted
Embrace, extend, extinguish Comment deleted
FYI C in CSV is Character in MS slang Comment deleted
Not historically, but in practice the semicolon is much more convenient for text storage, while comma is mostly used for numbers-only data nowadays. But it doesn't really matter, because in terms of text/mixed types and table-like readability both are no match for TSV. Also, CSV is commonly used for database table export, and in that case, comma is most convenient, since you can directly copypaste data from CSV into a query. Comment deleted