On Feb 18, 2008 6:45 PM, Andrew Ballard <aballard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Feb 18, 2008 1:39 PM, Robert Cummings <robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 13:24 -0500, Andrew Ballard wrote: > > > On Feb 18, 2008 1:08 PM, Graham Cossey <graham.cossey@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > > > My biggest gripe with tab delimited files is > > > > that they are quite a bit bigger than comma delimited files so I may > > > > have to split the large files I receive into smaller 'chunks' to allow > > > > them to be uploaded. > > > > > > > > > > > Why would tab-delimited files be larger than CSV? A tab character takes > > up > > > just as much space as a comma as far as document size is concerned. Am I > > > missing something? > > > > He's probably confusing tab delimited with fixed width columns. > > > > Cheers, > > Rob. > > > > Ah, yes. That would also explain why Excel would open it as a single column > by default if he didn't use the text import wizard. > > FWIW - If you do open a text file like this, there is a menu item to convert > text to columnar data once the sheet is already open so you don't have to > close the document and reopen it. > > Andrew > Nope not fixed width, definitely tab delimited (longer fields 'overlap' ones above and below when viewed in a text editor), as for the size difference I don't know why but when I open into Excel and save as CSV the files are smaller. I just opened a 50.2KB tab delimited file into Excel saved it as CSV and this new file is 25KB!! Maybe I really am finally going mad. -- Graham -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
