* separated values

[brueckd at tbye.com]

On 15 Jan 2002, Robin Munn wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Jan 2002 16:53:09 +0300, Oleg Broytmann <phd at phd.pp.ru> wrote:
> >On Tue, Jan 15, 2002 at 01:42:10PM +0000, Magnus Lie Hetland wrote:
> >> Basically, what I'm wondering is whether it would be possible to add
> >> such a beast to the standard library. It seems like a very natural
> >> format to support, doesn't it?
> >
> >   I don't think so.
>
> I do. I once needed to translate a couple of .csv files to another
> format, and started out writing my own parser since "it'll be simple,
> right?" Discovered there are several subtleties that make it not
> particularly easy, decided someone must have already invented this
> wheel, and found a csv parser on-line. Not too much time wasted, but if
> it had been in the standard library, I wouldn't have wasted *any* time
> at all.

I totally see how it'd be easier for you if it was in the std library, but
where do we stop? I for one have never needed a CSV parser beyond
simple comma-separated stuff so adding this to the main distribution would
never benefit me. I use PIL and Numeric more, so shouldn't we include them
instead (licensing issues aside)? A CPAN solution is the only one that'll
work.