# I don't understand "split field by separator" at all
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 30, 2025, 6:12am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347 "2025-04-30T06:12:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@nalathequeen2186](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nalathequeen2186)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:12am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/1 "2025-04-30T06:12:53Z")
I'm pretty new to using this program, and so far it's all seemed pretty intuitive to me, but this one thing is completely stumping me. There really seems to be almost no information I can find either on this site or the internet at large about how to actually _use_ it. The most I can find is a basic guide on how to like, activate it as an action, but not what I should be seeing after it's finished. I just want to be able to split up (and then preferably sort by?) fields like Artist, so that a song is correctly listed as being by "Jane Doe" and also "John Doe," instead of by "Jane Doe; John Doe" as one single string.
I followed the (again, very basic) instructions on how to do this action, and I thought I applied it to every song in my library by selecting all, I denoted a semicolon as the separator, it showed a dialog box for a while indicating it was applying this to all my songs, and then... once it finished everything looks the same. I really can't see any indication at all that the entries that are separated by semicolons are actually being treated as a multi-value field instead of just a single string like before. Am I... _supposed_ to be seeing something different? Is there really no visible indicator that the field is multi-value now? Is there some other setting I need to activate in order to see the results? I'm so confused on how this works. The only information I can even find on this is within posts that are over a decade old, and very sparse on details.
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:16am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/2 "2025-04-30T06:16:38Z")
> [@nalathequeen2186](#):
>
> Am I... _supposed_ to be seeing something different? Is there really no visible indicator that the field is multi-value now?
Press Alt + T on such tracks and you can see multiple fields with the same name. In your case multiple ARTIST fields, also called "multi-value field".
It depends on your player whether it supports multi-value fields and whether it displays the different artists correctly.
From:
you get two ARTIST fields with the Action "Split field by separator" using a semicolon
And the Artist field in the tag panel now shows the multi-value field with two backslashes as separator. These backslashes are only there to indicate the multi-value field. They are NOT saved into your fields and are not part of your content.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/3 "2025-04-30T06:20:46Z")
If you find that - @LyricsLover indicated - your player does not support multi-value fields but wants to have the various parts in a single field, then the opposite to
> **[Split Field by Separator – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions/split-field/)**
>
> Documentation on the Split Field action type that can be performed as Quick Action or as reusable workflow from Action Groups. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor.
is
> **[Merge Duplicate Fields – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions/merge-duplicate-fields/)**
>
> Documentation on the Merge Duplicate Fields action type that can be performed as Quick Action or as reusable workflow from Action Groups. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor.
If the
> [@nalathequeen2186](#):
>
> song is correctly listed as being by "Jane Doe" and also "John Doe,"
is a problem of the player.
In MP3tag you see each file only once.
You may find multi-value fields indicated by `\\` like `Jane Doe\\John Doe`.
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### Author:  [@nalathequeen2186](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nalathequeen2186)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:33am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/4 "2025-04-30T06:33:39Z")
Okay, that makes way more sense! I almost never looked at the extended tags option, so I completely forgot I could look there tbh. Thanks so much for the simple explanation! Unfortunately does that mean that I can still only sort the tabs on the main screen by whatever option comes first within a multi-value field? (Like if the field contains "A; B" and then sorted that column by alphabetical order it would sort that file only by A and not also B since A came first)
I do have one other question: does this mean that whether a field can be read by _any_ program as being multi-value is something stored within the file itself? Like, if I had two identical files that both had "Jane Doe; John Doe" written in the Artist field, but I had only run the "split field by separator" action on one of those files, and then I imported both into a music player that supports multi-value fields, that only the one file I had run the action on would be "recognized" by that player as having multiple values in the Artist field? Or is the "split field by separator" function more just for clarity while working within mp3tag itself, and the music player would be able to recognize both as having multiple artists without issue? (I hope that makes sense, I can be a bit wordy sometimes)
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:39am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/5 "2025-04-30T06:39:01Z")
> [@nalathequeen2186](#):
>
> that I can still only sort the tabs on the main screen by whatever option comes first within a multi-value field?
MP3tag sorts by the string in the field that you selected for sorting. In the file list you can additionally set an expression to generate the string that is used for sorting.
See also this thread on the various separators as used by different programs
> [@Should I use ";" or "\\\\" or "-" as a separator?](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/should-i-use-or-or-as-a-separator/45708):
>
> To date I have been using a ";" as a separator for the Artist, Composer and Genre fields. I would then do an action of merge duplicate fields for these fields after ripping a CD (or after a bunch of CD's). This displays well with the music players that I use currently but whether if or I may want to use another player in the future I am wondering if there is a better solution that is more universal?. Been thinking about whether it would of been best to use the "\" as a separator or even a …
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### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 6:41am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/6 "2025-04-30T06:41:38Z")
> [@nalathequeen2186](#):
>
> multi-value is something stored within the file itself?
Yes, tag fields are written into your track and they look like this if you open your track in a hex editor:
[TPE1](https://docs.mp3tag.de/mapping/#artist) is the technical term for ARTIST.
The strange characters around Jane Doe and John Doe reflects your current File -\> Options -\> Tags -\> Mpeg settings (for mp3 tracks).
It is really up to your player to read, process, and display these values correctly.
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### Author:  [@nalathequeen2186](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/nalathequeen2186)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2025, 7:06am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/7 "2025-04-30T07:06:43Z")
Thank you both for the very quick and easy to understand answers!
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2025, 7:06am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/i-dont-understand-split-field-by-separator-at-all/68347/8 "2025-05-30T07:06:48Z")
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