ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Comma-separated values

Comma-separated values, or CSV for short, is a way to store a bunch of information in a simple format. Think of it like a grocery list, where you write down all the things you need to buy and separate each item with a comma.

In a CSV, instead of groceries, we store data like names, ages, addresses or anything else we want to keep track of. Each bit of data, like a person's name or age, is separated by a comma, and the end of each line is marked by a "newline" character.

For example, if we wanted to store a list of people and their ages, we might write it like this:

John,25
Jane,32
Bob,47

In this example, we have three people: John, Jane and Bob. For each person, we have two pieces of information - their name and their age. We separate these pieces of information with a comma, and start a new line for each person using the "newline" character, so that it's easier to read.

CSV files are very useful when we want to move data between different programs because they are easy to read, and almost every programming language can parse or read them as well.