What is the CSV Format and Why Is It Useful?
By Dave Mabe
Here's a great question from another reader, Dr. D. (Name used with permission)
Dr. D:
What is the CSV format and how is it used?
Dave:
I love this question because the CSV format is one of my favorite hacks.
CSV stands for "comma-separated values."
It's a way to organize data in a spreadsheet format.
While there are certainly more convenient formats in certain contexts, the CSV format has two major advantages that make it stand the test of time.
Minimal markup, making it efficient to read and store
Widespread interoperability
Lots of programs know how to create files in the CSV format, and lots know how to read files in the CSV format.
You can export backtests from Amibroker, Trade-Ideas, RealTest, Python, and many others into the format.
Simply double-click on a CSV file in Excel, and it will know exactly how to handle it.
In fact, I use it so often that I set CSV as the default format for saving a file in Excel.
The CSV format isn't perfect, but after 28 years of using it as my default, it's hard to imagine an alternative being more convenient.
Great question, Dr. D.
-Dave
P.S. Speaking of CSV files, I've recently documented a generic CSV format for backtests to feed to the Strategy Cruncher. Using this generic format allows you to use any software you want to create a backtest to get optimized into profitability without curve fitting using MabeKit. Here's the doc.