Hi Lars, On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 05:18:54 -0500, Lars D. Nood�n wrote:
> >Sorry, but there's no such thing as a "tab delimited file". There are > >text files that contain tabs, some of them are intended to be used as > >"delimited files", others are not. > > That's what I mean a table where the columns are delimited by tabs. This > is also know as tab delimited. I know this was referred. However, what I wanted to express is, that there is no reliable way to detect whether a text file's content is meant to be of type delimited fields. In some cases it would be just guessing, and maybe wrong. > >.txt has never been an extension to indicate tab-delimited. > > .txt has been an extension to indicate a text file. Correct. > Some of these text files contain a table where the data is organized > in columns which are delimited by tabs. Excactly, _some_ of them. > Around 5 years ago, I also saw a fair number of these > labeled with the .tab file name extension. Most (all?) spreadsheets and > databases that I saw from 1985-1999 saved this kind of file with the .txt > extension. Yes, and many word processors, especially in the 80s and 90s, saved files with a .txt extension, and the extension is also widely used for ASCII text files of any kind. From the extension you can't tell which type of file it is. > I don't have old copies of or even my old manuals from Visicalc, Lotus > 1-2-3, Quattro, Qubecalc, MS-Excel4 & 5, etc. so I can't cite specifics, > but I think you understand what Frank is requesting. Of course. And as Mathias pointed out, quite a few people were requesting this. It's all easy if you _only_ have a spreadsheet application, but in an office suite with several applications things get more complicated. Eike -- GnuPG key 0x293C05FD: 997A 4C60 CE41 0149 0DB3 9E96 2F1A D073 293C 05FD --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
