When a comma belongs inside a CSV field.

The same comma can have two different jobs

Outside a quoted field, a comma separates fields. Inside a quoted field, it belongs to the field value. Splitting each text line on commas is therefore not a reliable CSV parser.

sku,description,price
MUG-BLUE,"Ceramic mug, blue",12.50

The data record has three fields. Its description is Ceramic mug, blue, including the comma.

Write a quote inside a quoted field as two quotes

record_id,note
001,"He said ""ready"""

The parsed note is He said "ready". The outer quotes mark the field boundary, and the doubled inner quotes represent literal quotation marks.

A quoted value can span physical lines

record_id,note
001,"First line
Second line"
002,"One line"

This example has two data records, even though the first data record occupies two text lines. A line-count tool and a CSV record-count tool can both be working correctly while reporting different counts.

Do not add or remove every quote

Removing all quotes can turn a valid embedded comma into a new column. Adding quotes without escaping existing quotes can create malformed CSV. Make a targeted repair and re-parse the file to confirm the resulting field values.

Understand what the strict setting controls

Malformed quotes stop parsing in either mode. The strict setting makes inconsistent field counts and header issues errors instead of warnings; turning it off does not reconstruct broken quotes. Review the earliest reported problem because later field-count errors may follow from the same broken boundary.

CSV dialects vary between applications. Confirm the delimiter, quote conventions, and encoding expected by the receiving application before changing the source.

TabularGate's cleanup options do not claim to reconstruct missing values or infer the intended meaning of broken quotes. Keep the original and correct the source when the intended structure is unclear.

Run the quoted and multiline example →

Format reference: RFC 4180, section 2 describes common CSV quoting conventions. It is an informational document; applications also use their own dialects.