CSV is an acronym that stands for Comma-Separated Values in English. It is a spreadsheet file. The values are separated by commas. This format is the least known of all. Yet it is related to exporting or importing databases. In this article, let's find out a bit more about a CSV file.
This video explains a little more about what a CSV file is exactly:
What is a CSV file?
Today, with the GDPR law, it is possible to upload your data to Facebook or any social network. When uploading these files to social media, you often hear the term CSV file. What is it really? A CSV file is a very simple text format file, consisting of data. The format of CSV files will be standard, to be read and above all used in a simple way by different applications, software or websites. Here is how the file is represented: (see the photo below)
- On the first line, it is the header of the columns;
- Then, you have one row per data, as shown in the photo below:
What are CSV files used for?
As mentioned above, CSV is a simple text format. It is used in several contexts, mainly when large amounts of data need to be merged, without them being connected to each other. The extension of CSV files is “.csv”. The advantage of these files is that they can be used between different IT tools and databases when you want to move the contents of a database to an Excel spreadsheet.
CSV files can be imported and exported to various spreadsheet programs, including:
- Excel;
Ditto for databases, namely MySQL and Oracle. However, since CSV files have a basic structure, the format is only suitable for simple structured data.
