Another recent question about using CSV-files with SQLyog reminds me that we had an old discussion that was not completely finished!
4.2 introduces a “fill Excel-friendly values” functioanlity in the CSV settings dialogue. it uses the comma ” , ” as field seperator. I proposed that it should use semicolon ” ; ” instead. Ritesh an CalEvans were involved in that discussion too and we never agreed.
No matter that CSV stands for 'Comma Seperated Values' my Danish Excel2000 uses semicolon. And I found out why I guess.
It is a localization issue! It springs from the fact the the meaning of punctuation ” . ” and komma ” , ” is reversed with most european languages within decimal numbers compared to English. The number “4 thousand 2 hundred and 13 – point 2″ looks like this in english ” 4,213.2 ” and “4.213,2” in most other european languages. Since decimal values are common in data a CSV using comma as delimiter would create a lot of problems/conflicts – so a CSV is really a SSV in Danish for instance! Programs like Excel handle it that localized way!
But SQlyog 4.3 will solve all localization issues, I have been told! So the code should check for locale when filling “Excel-friendly values” ! Or a setting should be available.
Any German, Spanish, French etc. people out there that can confirm ?
BTW: we should learn the Webyog people something about locales. Let's start getting one keyboard in each language for the world and send to them. Then they can test with a Czech and a Polish keyboard themselves and we won't have to! I can contribute with an old serial Danish keyboard … 😀 😀 😀
