All Record Types

Quotation Marks

Comma delimited protocol requires that text values that contain a comma character be enclosed in quotation marks. Beyond that specific condition, text values in comma delimited files do not have to be enclosed in quotation marks, but doing so causes no harm.

The following example of an 1120 header record shows the one condition where a data value must be enclosed in quotation marks:

"PD2165","State Electric Utilities, Inc","","72-9876543","","U"

In a Data Connection export file, all data fields in the header record and data records are enclosed in quotation marks. The quotation marks will not adversely impact the use of the export file as an import file, nor will the quotation marks adversely impact the parsing of the header record and data records if the file is opened in the Excel spreadsheet application.

Carriage return characters (ASCII code 13) and line feed characters (ASCII code 10) should not be used to terminate a data field value either individually or as a pair. Comma delimited protocol interprets either code or the combination of the codes as the end of a logical record.

Embedded Quotation Marks

Quotation marks are not allowed within a data field value. For example, the corporate name in the header record shown below is invalid because it contains embedded quotation marks around the subordinate value NSC.

"TL3954","National Service Corp "NSC"","","","","R"

As shown below, single quotation marks can be used in place of quotation marks to set off a subordinate value within a data field value.

"TL3954","National Service Corp 'NSC',"","","","R"

Carriage Feed and Line Return Pair

Import/Export/dc_specs_gst_22.htm/TY2021

Last Modified: 02/23/2021

Last System Build: 10/18/2022