# CSV output
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483
**Category:** Export
**Created:** [February 18, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483 "2007-02-18T23:26:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@eusty](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/eusty)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483/1 "2007-02-18T23:26:19Z")
If you have a comma in a string it throws the export out by one cell. I've found the Replace function i(but haven't tried it yet), but would I have to apply this to each output string when exporting, or is there an easier way top apply it for every string?
Cheers
Steve
---
### Author:  [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)
#### Post date: [February 18, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483/2 "2007-02-18T23:56:32Z")
> [@eusty](#):
>
> If you have a comma in a string it throws the export out by one cell.
The original CSV convention is:
- numbers = **123**
- decimals = **123.45**
- strings = **"hello, world"**
A line from a CSV file can look like this for example:
"Heroes","Meat Loaf","100% Rock (CD2)","2003","02/18","05:09",11299801,44100,123.54,"Comment, that has a comma included"
There are some variations beside the original CSV convention:
SSV Semicolon Separated Values
TSV Tab Separated Values
and so on ...
Nearly all other characters are allowed to be a separator, if the target application can understand this. The one separator character must be unique to the 'CSV' file.
DD.20070219.0149
---
### Author:  [@eusty](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/eusty)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483/3 "2007-02-19T22:34:24Z")
I was using the default CSV export file, which for some reason was seperated by semi-colons!!
```
$filename("csv")Artist,Title,Album,Comment,Year,Length,Size,
$loop(%_filename%)"%artist%","%title%","%album%","%comment%","%year%","%_length","%_file_size%",
$loopend()build on %_date%
```
Throws up a syntax error, I remember reading about putting a escape character before the quotes etc.....I've just got to remember where I saw it!!
Using ' as the escape character solves the syntax error, but the output in the CSV is..
```
%artist% %title% %album% %comment% %year% %_length %_file_size%
```
So it doesn't parse the placeholders....I'm confused! 
---
### Author:  [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2007, 11:09pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483/4 "2007-02-19T23:09:22Z")
> [@eusty](#):
>
> I was using the default CSV export file, which for some reason was seperated by semi-colons!!...
The semi-colon character as separator in a CSV file has been used in Germany/Europe all over the last two decades or maybe three decades, because the german decimal point is traditionally designed as a comma character. Also the Germans do not use a thousands comma separator but a thousands point separator. Therefore a german alike CSV file is in fact a SSV file.
(american) "Peaches","Price",123.45,"Dollar" \<==\> "Pfirsiche";"Preis";123,45;"EUR" (german)
In former german versions of Excel the semi-colon character was the predefined standard separator when importing CSV files.
DD.20070220.0109
---
### Author:  [@eusty](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/eusty)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2007, 11:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/csv-output/4483/5 "2007-02-20T23:32:11Z")
So why is it called a CSV file if it used semi-colons!! 😳
Anyway that's beside the point 🙂
All I want is to export the details in a spreadsheet which is causing me a headache!! HTML is so much easier to export to ☹