Introduction

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a simple, widely used tabular data format. Each line represents a row, with values separated by commas. CSV is supported by virtually all spreadsheet applications and data analysis tools.

Stencila supports bi-directional conversion between CSV files and Datatable nodes.

Usage

Use the .csv file extension, or the --to csv or --from csv options, when converting to/from CSV e.g.

stencila convert table.smd table.csv

Implementation

CSV support is implemented in the Rust crate codec-csv using the csv crate.

Limitations

Only Datatable nodes are supported. Other document node types (articles, paragraphs, etc.) cannot be converted to or from CSV.

All values are stored as text. Numeric and boolean types are inferred on import but type information is lost on export.

CSV has no standard for encoding nested or structured data within cells.