CSV
A spreadsheet that lost its formatting, and every ambiguity that implies.
How it opens
CSV parses into the records shape — many rows of the same shape, browsed as a list with a per-row view.
Nothing is chosen by file extension alone: every adapter scores the text itself and the highest confidence wins. When two are close enough that guessing would be a coin flip, the app asks instead of picking.
- extensions · .csv
- media type · text/csv
- shape · records
- extra diagnostics · this adapter lints beyond what parsing reports
Fixing
A broken CSV document gets a verdict — “Not valid CSV yet · N fixable” — and a list: every problem on its line, with the fix’s name, before anything changes. Fix all rewrites only the lines it names and leaves every other byte as pasted; ⌘Z puts the original back exactly. Typing a fix yourself counts the verdict down with no click.
Nesting
A CSV value can hold another system's output — a stringified body, an escaped document. Unpack opens it in place, names the parser that opened it, and repeats until nothing parses. Pack restores the original text byte for byte rather than re-serializing from the tree.
A sample
The document below is the fixture this adapter ships and its own tests parse — not an illustration written for this page.