Glossary of technical terms

This is a collaborative glossary of technical terms to help students learn the language of technology.

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CSV / Comma Separated Values

Added by Tom Lynch

This is a method of encoding tabular data in a machine-readable format using an agreed ASCII character to separate data columns, usually a comma, but sometimes tabs, and new lines as rows.

Typically, the choice of ASCII character is based on whether the data is likely to have that character in a cell; for example, a cell can't have a comma if the data is encoded with commas or without using an escape character.

This data:

Name	Age
Tom	36
Kyle	34

Would be encoded like this:

Name,Age
Tom,36
Kyle,34