Re: CSV data and decimal separators

[Guy Harris <guy () alum mit edu>]

On Nov 19, 2014, at 6:20 PM, Guy Harris <guy () alum mit edu> wrote:

> What do various programs do when reading comma-separated value files if:
>
>       1) the file contains floating-point values
>
> and
>
>       2) the locale in which the program is being run uses comma, rather than period, as the decimal separator?

> From a quick experiment, using Excel for Mac 2011, with a locale temporarily tweaked to use , as the decimal separator 
> and . as the thousands separator, the wizard for importing data, if I try to import a CSV file, offers an option 
> (under "Advanced..." in step 3 of the import wizard) to, on a per-column basis, control what characters to use as 
> decimal and thousands separators when importing the file.  It offers , as a decimal separator and . as a thousands 
> separator by default in that case.

With the default settings, importing a file with:

        5.3,hello,goodbye,2.18281828

results in cell A1 containing the text "5.3".  Setting cell A2 to "=A1+10" causes a value error.  Changing cell A1 to 
"5,3" causes cell A2 to contain "15,3".

Saving the spreadsheet as a "Windows CSV" file apparently spells "semicolon" with an initial "C", as the file was 
written out as a *semicolon*-separated file, with commas as decimal separators and periods as thousands separators.

Importing with . as the decimal separator and , as the thousands separator results in cell A1 containing the text 
"5,3", which is correctly treated as 5 and 3/10ths.
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