From 02a4bcbaa62183d6a13ac48ac50b7b6d456d28e8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jim Myhrberg Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 20:26:46 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] Fix some typos and improve markdown structure --- README.md | 27 ++++++++++++++++----------- 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 8d85ef0..8be144c 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -3,19 +3,22 @@ CSV is not a file format, it is typically a loose set of guidelines of how to structure tabular data into a plain text string. As such there's an endless amount of `*.csv` files floating around which are highly incompatible with -each other. The closest thing there is to a specification is -[RFC 4180](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180). +each other. The closest thing there is to a specification is [RFC 4180][]. + +[rfc 4180]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 ## Goals This project is an attempt to summarize RFC 4180 and the information in the -[Comma-separated values (CSV)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values) -Wikipedia article into a easy to understand format. The spec will also take -into account that the comma (`,`) character is not the only character used as -a field delimiter. Semi-colons (`;`), tabs (`\t`), and more are popular field -delimiter characters. As such the specification will more accurately be -describing a CSV-like structured data format. +[Comma-separated values (CSV)][csv] Wikipedia article into a easy to +understand format. The spec will also take into account that the comma (`,`) +character is not the only character used as a field delimiter. Semi-colons +(`;`), tabs (`\t`), and more are popular field delimiter characters. As such +the specification will more accurately be describing a CSV-like structured +data format. + +[csv]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values We will also provide input/output test files that CSV parser/writer software libraries can use to validate if they properly adhere to the rules laid out in @@ -40,15 +43,17 @@ character used in any given input CSV-like formatted file/data. ## Terminology - **Field** — A singular String value within a row. -- **Row** (or **Record**) — A collection of fields. +- **Record** (or **Row**) — A collection of fields. - **Column** — Fields from multiple rows at the same offset. For example the second column would be a list of the second field from every row. - **Delimiter** — The character used to separate fields withing a row. Commonly this will be a comma (`,`), but semi-colons (`;`) or tabs (`\t`) are two other popular delimiter characters. - **Header** — The first row is often used to contain the column names for all - remaining rows. Header names would be used as key names during when CSV data - is converted to JSON for example. + remaining rows. Header names would be used as key names when CSV data is + converted to JSON for example. +- **Line Break** — Line breaks in CSV files should be CRLF (`\r\n`). In + examples the `¬` character will be used to visually display line breaks.