Comma or semicolon?
Regional and application settings often decide which separator gets exported. A semicolon-delimited .csv is not automatically wrong.
File formats & data
CSV is a table written as text.
Rows are separated by line endings and columns by a delimiter. The extension says “CSV”, but the actual delimiter may be a comma, semicolon, tab or another agreed character.
Key concepts
TSV
TSV uses tabs between fields. It follows the same basic rows-and-columns idea without relying on commas.
Quoted values
Quotes allow a field itself to contain delimiters or line breaks. A robust parser must distinguish those from real row or column boundaries.
Encoding and line endings
Text can be stored using different encodings and Windows, Unix or older systems may represent line endings differently. A file may therefore look broken in one program while its data is still recoverable.
Why TaskThimble detects instead of assuming
TaskThimble checks the structure and supports common delimiters and line endings, including older CR-only exports. When a file is ambiguous, the result should expose that uncertainty instead of silently inventing columns.