virt-df: Add note about parsing CSV.

This commit is contained in:
Richard Jones
2009-09-24 11:22:17 +01:00
parent 6a14f1c250
commit f8a96c6596

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@@ -107,8 +107,9 @@ my $csv;
=item B<--csv>
Write out the results in CSV format (comma-separated values).
This format can be imported easily into databases and spreadsheets.
Write out the results in CSV format (comma-separated values). This
format can be imported easily into databases and spreadsheets, but
read L</NOTE ABOUT CSV FORMAT> below.
=cut
@@ -309,6 +310,30 @@ sub human_size
}
}
=head1 NOTE ABOUT CSV FORMAT
Comma-separated values (CSV) is a deceptive format. It I<seems> like
it should be easy to parse, but it is definitely not easy to parse.
Myth: Just split fields at commas. Reality: This does I<not> work
reliably. This example has two columns:
"foo,bar",baz
Myth: Read the file one line at a time. Reality: This does I<not>
work reliably. This example has one row:
"foo
bar",baz
For shell scripts, use C<csvtool> (L<http://merjis.com/developers/csv>
also packaged in major Linux distributions).
For other languages, use a CSV processing library (eg. C<Text::CSV>
for Perl or Python's built-in csv library).
Most spreadsheets and databases can import CSV directly.
=head1 SEE ALSO
L<guestfs(3)>,