Socrata was acquired by Tyler Technologies in 2018 and is now the Data and Insights division of Tyler. The platform is still powered by the same software formerly known as Socrata but you will see references to Data & Insights going forward.

CSV Format

CSV, or Comma-separated Values, is an extremely common flat-file format that uses commas as a delimiter between values. Anyone familiar with spreadsheet programs has very likely encountered CSV files before - they’re easily consumed by Google Spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel, and countless other applications.

Format

CSV output will always start with the first row returning the column field names. Then the data itself will follow as CSV records.

name,date,count,description,replaces_product,approved
"Inflatable Elephant, African", 2013-09-23,5,"Found in Africa.
They live in dense forests, mopane and miombo woodlands, Sahelian scrub or deserts.",null,true
Large Mouse,2013-08-19,3,"A ""largish"" mouse",General Mouse,false

Although the format is basically simple, there are a few rules you’ll need to follow:

  1. Strings containing embedded commas, newlines, or quotes will themselves be quoted. For example, Inflatable Elephant, African has quotes around it because it contains a comma. Its description also is quoted, because it contains a newline.
  2. Quotes within values are escaped by doubling them, so " becomes "". For example, the quotes in A "largish" mouse are doubled because they must be escaped.
  3. Empty fields and null values are denoted by no value. Simply have nothing between the commas.