TSV

TSV (tab-separated values) is like CSV but separates fields with tabs, avoiding conflicts with commas inside fields; it is common in database exports and NLP.

Purpose

To provide a tabular format that needs no quote escaping, simplifying parsing.

Mechanism

Each line is a record with fields separated by tabs. Because tabs are rare in data, quoting is usually unnecessary. The Unix cut command splits on tabs by default.

Use cases

Database BCP exports
NLP corpus annotation (CoNLL)
Tabular transfer in Unix pipelines
Bioinformatics

Examples

Input
```
name	age
Ada	36
```
Output
```
A tab-separated table
```
No quoting needed

Common errors

A field containing a tab is left unhandled: Replace or escape tabs inside fields

Related terms

CSV (comma-separated values) is a tabular data format that separates fields with commas; RFC 4180 defines the standard, and it is widely used for data import and export.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data interchange format based on JavaScript object literals, using key-value pairs and arrays.

Related tools

Convert between CSV and JSON online. Supports comma, semicolon, and tab delimiters. Free, private, and 100% client-side.

References