Side Thoughts: Promoting pipe tables as a potential alternative to .CSV format (e.g. .PSV ?)

Just some extra thoughts:

  • Would it be safe to use this for .psv or should it adopt a separate extension, since it is is a more strictly defined standard?
  • It seems thought I would just hijack the .psv extension anyway. Since that’s what it seems commonmark is doing anyhow with .md
  • Strict mode (markdown tables with header auto detect) vs Compatibility mode (Cannot assume header, only one sheet, no starting | character for each line ) . This can perhaps be distinguished via the presence of a # in the first few lines, without encountering any |.
  • Thought it would be nice to eventually stick to strict mode. (Or maybe we make compatibility mode, an optional thing?)
  • : Can be safely used as a deliminator for subsequent multiline cells, as long as the last line used |

  • Since this is aimed at being simple parser competitor to CSV. It should probably ignore all styling :.

  • Perhaps could have multiline headers cells, by having a starting divider and detecting an ending divider.

  • How could we have non data fields like TOTAL?

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