2 ms·

Ascii is the reason why we have teletype control signals in our text files; I wouldn't call it particularly good solution for what it ended up being used as. So

by zokier 4y ago

Ascii is the reason why we have teletype control signals in our text files; I wouldn't call it particularly good solution for what it ended up being used as. Some sort of cleaner separation of control signals and data payload would imho been better

wombatpm 4y ago
That’s only a complaint for people who use CSV. If you use the ascii characters for record, file, unit, and group there are no problems with data payload
- zokier 4y ago
  > If you use the ascii characters for record, file, unit, and group there are no problems with data payload Unless your data happens to contain record, file, unit, group separators... Which is kinda the whole problem; ASCII does not have any proper separation/layering between the data and control characters.
  - rep_lodsb 4y ago
    If your fields are supposed to be human-readable text, there might be a reason for them containing tabs, but not these control characters. Obviously you need a more elaborate protocol for embedding arbitrary data, but ASCII isn't the right place to define that.
    - bhaak 4y ago
      The TAB character is not any different from the separator control characters. It is as non human readable as the other ones. It's just that it got more support historically. If e.g. Microsoft had used the separator control characters for CSV you can bet those control characters would have even better support than TAB does today.
bhaak 4y ago
When ASCII was designed teletype like applications were still prevalent. Lots of printing instead of outputting to displays. Nowadays, it's of course a bit wasteful that of the first 32 characters of the most used character set only about one third is still being used. And it's pretty sad that the separators control characters are not used. We could have a much better CSV with them instead of the error prone CSV we have know. But FWIW I almost daily use BEL.

by zokier 4y ago

wombatpm 4y ago

That’s only a complaint for people who use CSV. If you use the ascii characters for record, file, unit, and group there are no problems with data payload

zokier 4y ago
> If you use the ascii characters for record, file, unit, and group there are no problems with data payload Unless your data happens to contain record, file, unit, group separators... Which is kinda the whole problem; ASCII does not have any proper separation/layering between the data and control characters.
- rep_lodsb 4y ago
  If your fields are supposed to be human-readable text, there might be a reason for them containing tabs, but not these control characters. Obviously you need a more elaborate protocol for embedding arbitrary data, but ASCII isn't the right place to define that.
  - bhaak 4y ago
    The TAB character is not any different from the separator control characters. It is as non human readable as the other ones. It's just that it got more support historically. If e.g. Microsoft had used the separator control characters for CSV you can bet those control characters would have even better support than TAB does today.

bhaak 4y ago

When ASCII was designed teletype like applications were still prevalent. Lots of printing instead of outputting to displays. Nowadays, it's of course a bit wasteful that of the first 32 characters of the most used character set only about one third is still being used. And it's pretty sad that the separators control characters are not used. We could have a much better CSV with them instead of the error prone CSV we have know. But FWIW I almost daily use BEL.