Re: More than you ever wanted to know about csv files (Re: to csv or not to csv)

[John Denker <jsd av8n com>]

On 10/12/20 8:19 PM, William Park via gnumeric-list wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 11, 2020 at 04:02:33PM -0400, Morten Welinder wrote:
> > TL;DR: Avoid csv files if you can.
>
> Then, is there another format or standard you'd recommend when working
> with Gnumeric?  It's easy to say don't use CSV, but then what should
> people use instead?

That is a super-important question.  Every time it gets asked, the answer
seems to be "use the configurable text importer".

I'm trying to be a good listener.  So let me come at the question from a
slightly different angle:

Suppose I want to configure the importer to do what IMHO the .csv importer
should have been doing all along, starting with RFC compliance, and also
strictly adhering to the 5 semantic interpretation rules that MW provided.
I would be quite happy with that.

Specifically, in the context of ssconvert (which is what I care about), how
do I configure the importer?  The ssconvert manpage says the importer is
configurable, but doesn't say how.  By way of contrast, it mentions -O for
configuring an exporter, but I find no comparable mention of configuring an
importer.

I'm hoping the required configuration is ridiculously simple, but I need
some help getting started.