Media Type "text/csv": new draft (-02) and Last Call

Yakov Shafranovich YakovS at solidmatrix.com
Sun Apr 3 08:18:30 CEST 2005


I added this language to the -04 draft. Regarding the issue of the 
header, I added an optional "header" parameter to the MIME type that can 
be used to indicate the presence or absence of the header line.

Yakov

clyde.ingram at edl.uk.eds.com wrote:
> Yakov,
> 
> That draft wording sounds excellent.
> 
> Now, if you were to ALSO mandate the presence of the header record, that 
> would mitigate my concern that computer applications should be able to 
> exchange CSV files without worrying about same field order (simply 
> because the header conveys the field names, rather than needing an 
> out-of-band, bilateral agreement).  And, of course, presence of a header 
> record lets a computer application determine immediately whether the 
> supplied fields are likely to be what it expects.   All good aids for 
> careful validation.
> 
> Thank-you,
> Clyde
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Yakov Shafranovich [mailto:research at solidmatrix.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 8:08 PM
> To: clyde.ingram at edl.uk.eds.com
> Cc: GK-lists at ninebynine.org; ietf-types at alvestrand.no
> Subject: Re: Media Type "text/csv": new draft (-02) and Last Call
> 
> 
> clyde.ingram at edl.uk.eds.com wrote:
>  >
>  > But the same cannot be said of automated computer-based applications,
>  > where maintaining a strict count of generated and expected
>  > Comma-Separated-Values per record is not only easy, but also allows for
>  > an extra level of data validation: namely that a received record is
>  > corrupt if it has too few or too many fields.  This is where
>  > standardisation in the format of the CSV records becomes appropriate
>  > material for an RFC.
>  >
> 
> The draft as it is written now (-03) does not mandate that the same
> number of fields need to appear on each line, mainly due to the fact
> that the draft is focusing on the MIME type registration. Would the
> following change to section 2, subsection 4 be sufficient to address
> your concerns:
> 
> "Within the header and each record there may be one or more fields,
> separated by commas. Each line should contain the same number of fields
> throughout the file. The last field in the record may not be followed by
> a comma. For example:"
> 
> Yakov
> 




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