You are viewing our older product's guide. Click here for the documentation of GoodData Cloud, our latest and most advanced product.

CSV File Requirements

Before you upload a CSV file or a plain text file into your workspace, ensure that it meets the following requirements:

Up to 1 GB
Up to 250 columns
Up to 255 characters per cell
Delimiters:
- Comma (,)
- Semicolon (;)
- Vertical bar (|)
- Tab (⇥)
The date in a supported format
Decimal separators:
- Comma (,)
- Dot (.)

Do not use a thousands separator in your data.

We do not support UTF-8 with BOM.

Supported Date Formats

The order of day, month, and year:
- dd-MM-yyyy
- MM-dd-yyyy
- yyyy-MM-dd
- dd-MMM-yyyy
- MMM-dd-yyyy
- yyyy-MMM-dd
- MMM dd, yyyy
The MMM month specifier requires the month as an abbreviation (Jan-Dec) and is not case-sensitive.
Separators:
- Dash (-)
- Slash (/)
- Dot (.)
- Space ( )
- No separator as in yyyymmdd
The year between 1900 and 2050 inclusive
No time stamp

Two-digit Year Format

The following date formats support the two-digit format of the year:

dd-MM-yyyy
MM-dd-yyyy
yyyy-MM-dd

That is, 18-08-14 and 18-08-2014 are interchangeable and will both work.

If you use the two-digit year format, consider the following:

The values from 00 to 68 inclusive refer to the years from 2000 to 2068 correspondingly.
The values from 69 to 99 inclusive refer to the years from 1969 to 1999 correspondingly.

Let’s look at some specific cases:

If you use the yy-MM-dd format, the date 66-12-12 will not be accepted: according to the rules, it refers to the year of 2066, and 2066 is outside of the allowed range (which is, between 1900 and 2050 inclusive).
If you use the yymmdd format, the date 661212 will not be accepted as a date for the same reason as in the previous case. Instead, it will be treated as a fact.

One-digit Day and Month Format

All date formats support both one-digit and two-digit formats for a day and a month.

That is, 01-08-2014 and 1-8-2014 are interchangeable and will both work.

Empty Date Formats

To represent an empty date use an empty string, do not use NULL or any other placeholders. Using anything but an empty string will be interpreted as the column being an attribute, instead of a date.

Examples of Dates

The following dates are supported and will work well:

18.8.2014
08 18 2014
08-18-14
18/08/14
Aug-18-2014
2014.aug.18
18 AUG 2014
Aug/18/2014
Aug 18, 2014

The following dates are not supported and will not be accepted:

August 18, 2014
8\18\2014

Using a Comma as a Delimiter and as a Decimal Separator

If you use a comma (,) as a delimiter, use a dot (.) as a decimal separator.
```
product_name,category,price,quantity
Shirt,Clothing,100.33,1.00
```
If you use a comma (,) as a decimal separator, use a semicolon (;), vertical bar (|), or a tab (⇥) as a delimiter.
```
product_name,category,price,quantity
Shirt;Clothing;100,33;1,00
```
If you have to use a comma (,) both as a delimiter and as a decimal separator, put decimal numbers inside double quotation marks.
```
product_name,category,price,quantity
Shirt,Clothing,"100,33","1,00"
```