PRB: Exported Comma-Delimited File Has 3 Commas & No Quotes

ID: Q138754

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0

SYMPTOMS

After you export a file by clicking Export on the File menu, your data file has commas in place of quotation marks.

CAUSE

When exporting the file from the Visual FoxPro menu, a different delimiter was chosen from the list of available delimiters.

RESOLUTION

To create a true comma-delimited file, do not choose any other delimiter from the list unless your data file must be formatted using one of the other delimiters, such as TABS or SPACES.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

When you choose the Delimited Text format, the Export screen seems to indicate that you must choose the delimiter you want. When the Delimited Text format is chosen, you will be given a new menu where you can choose your delimiter. This delimiter is the value used to surround the data, not the separator between the data. No other file type (Microsoft Excel, Multiplan, SDF) offers this menu.

Because the comma is listed, you may try to use that as the delimiter for the file. What happens instead is that the comma takes the place of the quotation marks, resulting in the behavior noted in the "Symptoms" section.

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

1. Open the Customer table found in the Vfp\Samples\Data directory.

2. On the File menu, click Export, and then click the comma delimiter from

   the list.

   text file and note that there are no quotation marks around the exported
   data.