Adding metadata / identifier data to a CSV file?

Question

Is there a way to add a "tag" (add a unique metadata/identifier) to a CSV file without affecting the contents or ability to read/write the file?

I am using Python, but I don't think the language matters here.

You might want to look at this post:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14158868/python-skip-comment-lines-marked-with-in-csv-dictreader — bitfish, Aug 21 '13 at 16:29
I'd vote for the creation of a whole new file format that weaves both together. Not sure how that would hit a lot of OS and tool infrastructures in a breaking way but if it could be done in a non-breaking way I'd definitely be an adopter. I've had many woes to CSV files not having metadata outside of maybe tucking it into the file name. — jxramos, Aug 06 '15 at 21:39

score 21 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 21 '15 at 17:02

21

This would be compliant with W3C embedded metadata format: http://www.w3.org/TR/tabular-data-model/#embedded-metadata

#publisher,W3C
#updated,2015-10-17T00:00:00Z
#name,sensor,temperature
#datatype,string,float
sensor,temperature
s-1,25.5

answered Nov 21 '15 at 17:02

Sergei Rodionov

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score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '13 at 16:29

17

Just add comment lines that you can parse later.

#Creator:JohnSmith
#Date:....
#Columns:id,username,...
1,JohnSmith
2, ..

answered Aug 21 '13 at 16:29

gaborsch

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4

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't think this will work as the file could be opened / saved / edited in other applications such as Excel, which will read the comment lines in as data. – mhy Aug 21 '13 at 17:03
add comment lines very end of columns (not easily visible when open in ms excel) may be. – OliveOne Jun 08 '22 at 11:23
What about C/C++ ? How to add for those? – Saumya Sambit Acharya Aug 04 '22 at 07:41
@SaumyaSambitAcharya I'm not familiar with C/C++ parsers, but you can use the line comment they accept. – gaborsch Aug 04 '22 at 08:09

score 9 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 21 '13 at 16:59

9

In case you are not sure that all possible readers/writers of the file will be able to interpret (and preserve) comments, create the tag in a second file using some name convention that links them. Example:

myCSVFile.csv
myCSVFile.csv.tag

answered Aug 21 '13 at 16:59

Mario Rossi

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Adding metadata / identifier data to a CSV file?

3 Answers3