Re: [Gretl-users] Export data & Decimal point

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Sven Schreiber wrote: > Am 10.06.2010 10:33, schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti: >> On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Sven Schreiber wrote: >> >>> CSV files nowadays aren't even necessarily "comma-separated" and are >>> surely *not* intended by many users to be portable across countries. >>> (Even though that might be nice, but it just isn't the case.) >> >> Says who? > > well for example when you save an OpenOffice Spreadsheet file to > "text/csv" then the currently set decimal separator (usually from the > locale) is used. Obviously not portable. > > Now you may say that's exactly the problem with Office-like programs, > and maybe it's because OOo imitates MS Office too much, but that would > kind of miss the point. The point is that CSV is not standardized enough > to warrant the assumption that the decimal separator is the dot. Then > the question is: does gretl want to enforce a non-existent standard > because we (including me) like that behavior; or does gretl surrender to > the facts of the csv ecosystem and give users the option to produce > different variants of csv files. > > Ok, I think I made my point, personally I don't really care that much > (even if it sounded otherwise), so I will stop pushing this. I see your point. If a "standard" is only a nominal one, it's no standard at all, I agree. Maybe it's just me, but if we give in to a spreadsheet-like convention (which I don't like at all anyway), then we'd have to support national separators when _importing_ CSV files too, which would make the code for CSV import even more intricate and forgiving than it is now (and believe me, it is).