Field, record, and file delimiters

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4D v20.1

End-of-field delimiters are placed between fields in a record and the end-of-record delimiter is placed after each record. End-of-file delimiters are placed at the end of the import or export file. They may be necessary when exchanging files with certain applications.

Delimiters are used only with the Text and Fixed Length Text formats. The Fixed Length Text format does not use Field delimiters and, generally, neither text format uses an explicit File delimiter.

When importing data using the Text format, 4D uses the delimiters embedded in the file to determine where fields and records end. When exporting data, 4D automatically places these delimiters in the file for you.

When exporting data, if field or record delimiters are present in fields, they are automatically replaced by spaces. This way, they will not be incorrectly interpreted as delimiters and thus will not disrupt the importing process. For example, if you use a semi-colon as field delimiter and a field contains "a;b", the exported value will be "a b".
However, it is recommended that you make sure exported fields do not contain characters that are also used as field or record delimiters.