Dear Gretl community, When I try to export some data to a .csv file (using the following menu path File -> Export data -> CSV) I get "." as the decimal point instead of ",". I'm using a Mac with the pt_BR.UTF-8. In the Gretl's preferences menu, the option "Use locale setting for decimal point" is checked. How can I fix this behavior?

Define "change": If I have a .csv formatted according to Brazilian settings (i.e. "," as the decimal point) I can use double-clicking to open my data using Excel. Otherwise I need to open the .csv file in a text editor and replace all "." with "," before go to Excel.

IMHO, CSV files should only use the dot as decimal separator, in the interest of portability across countries.  I am aware that not everyone agrees with me on this, one notable case being ISTAT, the Italian Statistical Institute (which I find very annoying). But if the Academy of Science of Berzerkistan decided to use "@" as the decimal separator, you would still find it mildly funny to open a CSV file coming from your Berzerki co-author, full of gems like 1@234. I think the portability is guaranteed by the .gdt file.

It would be great (at least for me) if Gretl gives me the option to export data into .csv Brazilian formatted data.

The preferences checkbox is there to ensure that, as a proud citizen of your home country, you don't have a fit any time you see a dot instead of a comma and are reminded of how evil Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism is. I admire and respect United States a lot ;-) 

On Thu, 10 Jun 2010, Henrique Andrade wrote: > Dear Gretl community, > > When I try to export some data to a .csv file (using the following > menu path File -> Export data -> CSV) I get "." as the decimal point > instead of ",". I'm using a Mac with the pt_BR.UTF-8. In the Gretl's > preferences menu, the option "Use locale setting for decimal point" is > checked. > > How can I fix this behavior? Define "fix". IMHO, CSV files should only use the dot as decimal separator, in the interest of portability across countries. I am aware that not everyone agrees with me on this, one notable case being ISTAT, the Italian Statistical Institute (which I find very annoying). But if the Academy of Science of Berzerkistan decided to use "@" as the decimal separator, you would still find it mildly funny to open a CSV file coming from your Berzerki co-author, full of gems like 1@234.

The preferences checkbox is there to ensure that, as a proud citizen of your home country, you don't have a fit any time you see a dot instead of a comma and are reminded of how evil Anglo-Saxon cultural imperialism is.

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?

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).

Again, why is the question not rather: where is the documentation of this file format? It seems to me that gretl should - point to or provide documentation - read and write the documented format by default (in *all* locales) - possibly but not necessarily allow user over-rides of the defaults CSV should be a file format. That there are other similar text formats that sometimes are given the .csv extension is unfortunate but irrelevant.

When I try to export some data to a .csv file (using the following menu path File -> Export data -> CSV) I get "." as the decimal point instead of ",". I'm using a Mac with the pt_BR.UTF-8. In the Gretl's preferences menu, the option "Use locale setting for decimal point" is checked.

> When I try to export some data to a .csv file (using the > following menu path File -> Export data -> CSV) I get "." as the > decimal point instead of ",". I'm using a Mac with the > pt_BR.UTF-8. In the Gretl's preferences menu, the option "Use > locale setting for decimal point" is checked. The item in the preferences menu is purely concerned with the display of decimal values. As for exporting data, you should see the following sequence when you choose "/File/Export data/CSV...": 1. A dialog that allows you to select the series for saving. 2. Next, a dialog that allows you to choose the data separator (comma, space, tab, semicolon) and whether or not to include an observations column. In addition, if you are running gretl in a non-English locale and have selected the "use locale decimal character" option, this dialog should also offer a choice of decimal character. The default is (always) comma-separation and the decimal dot, but you can choose, e.g., semicolon separation and the decimal comma if you wish. (The dialog box is "wired up" such that you cannot choose the comma for both purposes.) 3. A dialog box for naming the output file. I just checked on Linux using LANG=pt_BR and got the extended options at step 2 OK. You're not seeing that?