The comma-separated values file format is a very simple data file format that is supported by almost all spreadsheet software such as Excel (although Excel uses the list separator of the current locale settings, which is a semicolon instead of a comma for many locales), Apple Numbers, OpenOffice.org Calc and Gnumeric as well as many online spreadsheet services such as EditGrid and Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Many database management systems support the reading and writing of CSV files.
Many applications that import CSV will try to interpret numbers and dates in order to allow sorting or other formatting features. For example, if a CSV field contains a large integer such as 1234567890123456 then it will appear in Gnumeric as 1.2346789012346E+15 and the resulting value is less accurate. Some applications also accept a single quote-character at the beginning of numbers as a way to indicate that it should be displayed as text (typically left aligned while numbers are right aligned). Also, although the csv specification does not specifically define any support for spreadsheet formulas, most spreadsheet programs will support cell formulas entered with csv by preceding the formula with an equal sign. For example if your csv document contained "1,2,3,=max(A1:C1)" most spreadsheet programs would correctly display 3 in the cell D1.