The text delimiter separates column values in delimited data (also known as VARTEXT). Whenever the text delimiter is encountered within the data, it will be interpreted as the end of the current column.
- The default text delimiter is a single vertical pipe ('|').
- For comma-separated values (csv) files, the delimiter is a comma (',').
- Multibyte delimiters are allowed as well, such as double pipe ('| |').
If, for example, the default delimiter the pipe ( | ) is used, the following record (abcd|ef|gh|ijk|lmno) is broken into the following five text formatted columns:
- abcd
- ef
- gh
- ijk
- lmno
In the following example, comma delimiters are used, but the second record (third column) uses a comma within the data (“Silver Customer, since 1999”).
| First Name | Last Name | Note |
|---|---|---|
| John, | Doe, | Gold Customer |
| Sam, | Smith, | Silver Customer, since 1999 |
To resolve the ambiguity in the use of the comma in the second record (third column), use one of the following solutions:
- Use multiple single byte characters as shown in the following table (the
TextDelimiter being used is ',,').
First Name Last Name Note John, , Doe, , Gold Customer Sam, , Smith, , Silver Customer, since 1999
- Define an escape text delimiter character using the EscapeTextDelimiter
attribute (for example, a backslash ['\']), as in the following example, to
embed the comma in the second record (third column).
First Name Last Name Note John, Doe, Gold Customer Sam, Smith, Silver Customer\, since 1999