# Studying multi-value delimiter conventions - any paradigm/exemplar/defacto file sources?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/studying-multi-value-delimiter-conventions-any-paradigm-exemplar-defacto-file-sources/55593
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [December 22, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/studying-multi-value-delimiter-conventions-any-paradigm-exemplar-defacto-file-sources/55593 "2021-12-22T12:32:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DavidEsp](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DavidEsp)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 12:32pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/studying-multi-value-delimiter-conventions-any-paradigm-exemplar-defacto-file-sources/55593/1 "2021-12-22T12:32:34Z")
Yesterday I experienced my first case of _received_ multiple (two) genres from a well-respected source, namely Discogs (received via Mp3tag). The received Genre metadata looks like "genre1, genre2". It looks the same in the Extended Tags dialog (not one-per-line, as I was half-expecting).
In Foobar (the cut-down macOS variant), in the Properties dialog (right-click the media item) it displays the same string: "genre1, genre2". At the bottom of the dialog it advises: "Delimit multiple values with ;". Since there are no quote marks around this delimiter (in the advice) I assume it is just the single character ";". But I have no way of being certain about that.
So maybe space characters (in the metadata) are regarded as "invisible" by most apps? In which case there is no distinction between the aforementioned ";" or "; " (comma-space)? Advice on whether this is true or not would be welcome.
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 12:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/studying-multi-value-delimiter-conventions-any-paradigm-exemplar-defacto-file-sources/55593/2 "2021-12-22T12:46:18Z")
The answer does not get any better than the already linked thread here:
> [@User-defined Hierarchical & Multiple Genres - Ideas](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/user-defined-hierarchical-multiple-genres-ideas/55555/9):
>
> Perhaps you find more information on delimiters/separators in this thread: (Spoiler: the + isn't used anywhere - that is considered plain text)
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### Author:  [@DavidEsp](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DavidEsp)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 12:52pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/studying-multi-value-delimiter-conventions-any-paradigm-exemplar-defacto-file-sources/55593/3 "2021-12-22T12:52:58Z")
Yes, thank you, I will definitely read that - directly relevant.
I had intended to yesterday, but became too distracted/inundated/exhausted with learning ID3, UTF, various apps and analysing examples of formats (about which I have now posted separately). I expect this flurry of activity/distraction on my part to calm down soon.