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Drivers Only Available for 32-Bit Platforms : The Text Driver : Formats for Text Files
 

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Formats for Text Files

Some common formats for text files are listed in the following table.
Table 51. Text File Formats
Format
Description
Comma-separated values
Commas separate column values, and each line is a separate record. Column values can vary in length. These files often have the .CSV extension.
Tab-separated values
Tabs separate column values, and each line is a separate record. Column values can vary in length.
Character-separated values
Any printable character except single and double quotes can separate column values, and each line is a separate record. Column values can vary in length.
Fixed
No character separates column values. Instead, values start at the same position and have the same length in each line. The values appear in fixed columns if you display the file. Each line is a separate record.
Stream
No character separates column values nor records. The table is one long stream of bytes.
Comma-, tab-, and character-separated files are called character-delimited files because values are separated by a special character.