alt Hacker NewsComma Separated files would likely exist because they're human readable, whereas FS/GS/RS/CR/LF are not visible.
There is "pipe delimited" which used "|" (ASCII 124 decimal) to separate fields, which actually makes way more sense, because that character is rarely used in normal text.
It's also a good separator when a human is reading the file.
Replies
UltraSane • today at 12:53 PM
I prefer alt 1 (smiley face) as a field separator. It definitely is rarely used in text.
They could be made visible. On MSDOS it was common to have editors show an arrow as ESC or EOF, respectively pointing left or right. A lone CR was a musical note.
I am not sure whether RS could have replaced LF or CR+LF in this kind of free-format database; overloading record and line separators makes sense. But if FS-separated fields were a thing, people on MSDOS would have been used to seeing ⌙ as a field separator and likewise for other OSes.