CSV
Fifty years old and still everywhere: spreadsheets as text.
Where it came from
Comma-separated values predate the PC: IBM's Fortran routines used them in 1972, and by the early 80s the format was the de-facto way to move spreadsheet data. Ironically, CSV was only standardized in RFC 4180 (2005) — decades after everyone started using it their own way.
That late standardization is why 'CSV dialect hell' exists: semicolons in Europe, tabs in TSV, quoting rules that vary by tool.
How it works
A CSV row is a line, fields are separated by a delimiter (comma, semicolon, tab). If a field contains the delimiter, quotes or newlines, it's wrapped in double quotes; embedded quotes are doubled (`""`).
There's no type system — everything is text until you decide otherwise. UWC's parser handles quoted fields, escaped quotes and both LF/CRLF line endings, and its coerceScalar policy mirrors spreadsheet behavior: unquoted scalars become numbers or booleans, quoted stay strings.
Convert CSV right here
CSV to JSON for code, to TSV for terminals, back and forth — computed in your browser.