| Internet-Draft | CCSV | June 2024 |
| Rankin | Expires 27 December 2024 | [Page] |
This document establishes the format used for Control-Character-Separated Values (CCSV) files and registers the associated MIME type "text/ccsv".¶
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶
The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://oldgrognard.github.io/ccsv-id/draft-rankin-ccsv.html. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rankin-ccsv/.¶
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/oldgrognard/ccsv-id.¶
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 27 December 2024.¶
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
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A CCSV (Control-Character-Separated Values file) is a file format that enables moving data between spreadsheets, statistical analysis programs, databases, and any other program that works with rectangular data. It is very similar to (CSV) Comma-Separated Values files [RFC4180], (TSV) Tab-Separated Values files, and their derivatives. Unlike those file types, the CCSV minimizes usage ambiguity by having non-printable characters as delimiters. The two delimiter characters may not appear in the document's text, making the practice of escaping certain characters or adding additional delimiters for certain strings unnecessary. This document seeks to define the format of Control Character Separated Values (CCSV) files and formally register the "text/ccsv" Media Type for CCSV in accordance with [RFC6838].¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
In order for a file to be a CCSV, it MUST adhere to the following formatting rules:¶
The file MUST use UTF-8 encoding. Since US-ASCII is a subset of UTF-8, programs may create CCSV files with that encoding. A consuming program may not be able to interpret all characters if it only works with US-ASCII and SHOULD work with UTF-8 if the source is unknown.¶
The file MUST NOT begin with a Byte Order Mark (U+FEFF).¶
A CCSV MUST begin with a header. The header consists of the names of the columns separated with US (U+001F) entities.¶
A Unit Separator US (U+001F) is used between each field in a record. Note that carriage returns and line feeds are not part of the delimiter and are valid characters in the body of a field.¶
A Record Separator RS (U+001E) is used between each record in the file including the header.¶
The header and each record, if any, MUST contain the same number of US (U+001F) entities. For example, the header and each record MUST have the same number of fields.¶
Empty fields are represented by consecutive delimiters.¶
The US (U+001F) entity and the RS (U+001E) entity MUST NOT appear in the body of a field.¶
The ABNF grammar [STD68] appears as follows:¶
file = header RS *(record RS) [record] header = name *( US name ) record = field *( US field ) name = field field = *VCHAR VCHAR = %x00-1D / %x20-D7FF / %xE000-10FFFF ; all characters except the designated delimiters and surrogates RS = %x1E ; record separator US = %x1F ; unit separator¶
CCSV files MUST be encoded using UTF-8 [RFC3629].¶
Implementations MUST NOT add a byte order mark (U+FEFF) to the beginning of the file or networked-transmitted text.¶
UTF-8 is widely supported across different platforms, operating systems, and languages. This ensures that CCSV files can be opened and read correctly regardless of the environment they are used in.¶
UTF-8 supports a vast range of characters from various languages, including those that use non-Latin scripts. This is crucial for data that might include international names, addresses, or other text in multiple languages, ensuring that all characters are preserved and displayed correctly.¶
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding scheme that uses 1 to 4 bytes for each character. It is efficient for encoding text that is primarily in English, as it uses only one byte for the most common characters, but can still accommodate characters from other languages when needed.¶
By requiring UTF-8, the CCSV format ensures a standard way of encoding text, which simplifies processing, parsing, and exchanging files. It helps in avoiding the complexities and potential errors that can arise from dealing with multiple encodings.¶
As the internet and technologies continue to evolve, UTF-8 remains a robust and forward-compatible choice, ensuring that CCSV files remain accessible and usable in the long term¶
CCSV files alone are considered relatively harmless as there is no additional prescribed processing. However, the file may be parsed and further processed by the recipient. To the extent that a receiving application executes arbitrary system level commands from strings contained in a CCSV file, they may be at risk.¶
Adherence to the Formatting Rules Section 2.1.1 and the Encoding Considerations Section 3 ensures a high level of interoperability.¶
This section provides the media-type registration application (as per [RFC6838]).¶
Type name: text¶
Subtype name: ccsv¶
Required parameters: N/A¶
Optional parameters: N/A¶
Encoding considerations: See Section 3¶
Security considerations: See Section 4¶
Interoperability considerations: See Section 5¶
Published specification: TBD¶
Applications that use this media type:¶
Databases, spreadsheets, statistical programs, and data conversion utilities
¶
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A¶
Additional information:¶
Deprecated alias names for this type: N/A
Magic number(s): N/A
File extension(s): CCSV
Macintosh file type code(s): TEXT
¶
Person & email address to contact for further information:¶
Mike Rankin
ICF International, Inc.
1902 Reston Metro Plaza
Reston, VA 20190
USA
mrankin@icf.com
¶
Intended usage: COMMON¶
Restrictions on usage: N/A¶
Author/Change controller: Mike Rankin¶
Provisional registration?¶
TODO acknowledge.¶