How do I change the CSV file delimiter from a comma "," to a carrot "^"?

[Kris Jensen]

Hi.   We are exporting data as a CSV (customer requires it) but we can't use a comma as one of the fields is a comments field which is full of commas.   I want to use a carrot ^, since this is not a common character.

how do I change or set the delimiter character?

Kris

[Chuck Tomasi]

In your data source, you should have a CSV delimiter field.

Set it as needed.

http://wiki.servicenow.com/index.php?title=Data_Sources

[Kris Jensen]

Hi.   This looks like this is for importing into Service Now.   I need to export out of Service Now.

[Chuck Tomasi]

Sorry Kris. I read it too quickly. There is no straightforward way to do this. That being said, there is an article that may help.

Beyond the Comma - File Export Delimiters-John Andersen

[drjohnchun]

Kris,

The CSV format is a well established standard per IETF RFC 4180; as long as the CSV generator conforms to this standard, any commas in the data don't cause issues. The standard calls for each field to be enclosed in double quotes, if it contains special characters (see Section 2.6); if the field data contains double quotes, they must be escaped. RFC 4180 Section 2.7 reads

If double-quotes are used to enclose fields, then a double-quote appearing inside a field must be escaped by preceding it with another double quote. For example:

             "aaa","b""bb","ccc"

So my suggestion is to enclose the fields containing commas using double quotes.

Please feel free to connect, follow, mark helpful, like, endorse.

John Chun, PhD PMP