csv output

[Bill Campbell]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009, Fairlight wrote:
>With neither thought nor caution, Richard Kreiss blurted:
>> Have a small problem and I am sure one of you can answer this.
>> 
>> I am outputting a value 6 and a letter.  If the value is either an A or P,
>> when excel reads in the value, it converts to a time.
>> 
>> Any idea how to avoid this?
>
>If memory serves, preceed your value with a single doublequote to have it
>taken as a string literal.
>
>I'm assuming you mean it's being converted in Excel.  If not, ignore the
>above.

I have found that the OpenOffice.org and Excel import of CSV files can get
confused on field types when exporting from my accounting software for
import.  The only thing I found to be reliable was to export from my
accounting software into a MySQL table, then I use OpenOffice.org's data
connector to import the data from MySQL using the JDBC connector.

The import to SQL always works as each column's type is well defined so
there is no possibility of confusion.

Bill
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