4 ms·

It is rough. There are many ways that different tools put NAs, na, N/A, "", etc. in a file. To chose only "NA" would mean I would be excluding the output of oth

It is rough. There are many ways that different tools put NAs, na, N/A, "", etc. in a file. To chose only "NA" would mean I would be excluding the output of other tools. I chose accessibility over specificity. #trade-offs.

ayoubElk 5y ago
Maybe you could just background highlight the empty cells?
- flusteredBias 5y ago
  Well, I think being promiscuous with "NA", "N/A", nan, etc. is a separate issue from a blank cell. A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    > A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA. Why? "NA" stands for "Not Applicable", but a blank cell in a CSV could represent any number of things of which "Not Applicable" is only one.
    - flusteredBias 5y ago
      haha. You are right "NA" stands for "Not Applicable". That is not always how people/programs using it though. What are some alternatives that you would suggest? I am happy to learn.
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        I would suggest similar to what other people have suggested where you color the background of the cell red and then just display the literal content of the cell. I think it would be reasonable to have this configurable via command line arguments though, so if you like the "NA" that could also be a mode. Perhaps it would make sense to have a "pretty" mode and a "literal" mode (which would also turn off the clever processing of numbers)?
      - ac29 5y ago
        I prefer "ND" (No Data), personally.
contravariant 5y ago
Fair enough but that doesn't explain why you chose to display all of them as "NA". As you say there are lots of different ones, hence it would be a bad idea to pick one as the 'default' to display. To me it's important whether something is missing, filled with "N/A", or "null", or "Not Applicable" etc.
eevilspock 5y ago
Simple: provide CLI switches to let the user decide what they want for NA detection (current behavior as default, user can provide alternate NA values, per the source file or the natural language it is expressed in), and how they want them displayed, whether as-is, blank or a consistent custom value (as-is should be the default).

ayoubElk 5y ago

Maybe you could just background highlight the empty cells?

flusteredBias 5y ago
Well, I think being promiscuous with "NA", "N/A", nan, etc. is a separate issue from a blank cell. A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  > A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA. Why? "NA" stands for "Not Applicable", but a blank cell in a CSV could represent any number of things of which "Not Applicable" is only one.
  - flusteredBias 5y ago
    haha. You are right "NA" stands for "Not Applicable". That is not always how people/programs using it though. What are some alternatives that you would suggest? I am happy to learn.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      I would suggest similar to what other people have suggested where you color the background of the cell red and then just display the literal content of the cell. I think it would be reasonable to have this configurable via command line arguments though, so if you like the "NA" that could also be a mode. Perhaps it would make sense to have a "pretty" mode and a "literal" mode (which would also turn off the clever processing of numbers)?
    - ac29 5y ago
      I prefer "ND" (No Data), personally.

contravariant 5y ago

Fair enough but that doesn't explain why you chose to display all of them as "NA". As you say there are lots of different ones, hence it would be a bad idea to pick one as the 'default' to display. To me it's important whether something is missing, filled with "N/A", or "null", or "Not Applicable" etc.

eevilspock 5y ago

Simple: provide CLI switches to let the user decide what they want for NA detection (current behavior as default, user can provide alternate NA values, per the source file or the natural language it is expressed in), and how they want them displayed, whether as-is, blank or a consistent custom value (as-is should be the default).