Delimiter-separated values

Formats that use delimiter-separated values (also DSV)^[2]: 113 store two-dimensional arrays of data by separating the values in each row with specific delimiter characters. Most database and spreadsheet programs are able to read or save data in a delimited format. Due to their wide support, DSV files can be used in data exchange among many applications.

A delimited text file is a text file used to store data, in which each line represents a single book, company, or other thing, and each line has fields separated by the delimiter.^[3] Compared to the kind of flat file that uses spaces to force every field to the same width, a delimited file has the advantage of allowing field values of any length.^[4]