> > When Excel reads a file, it looks for stuff and decides to upgrade its > type. Eg dates etc (particularly pernicious with US-style dates versus > the rest of the planet). Mojibake for data ensues. > > As always, I am reminded of Heuer's Razor: > > If it can't be turned off, it's not a feature. - Karl Heuer >
Good one. I always remember the start-up days (late 90s) when I developed and maintained an online concert calendar (Musi-Cal) written in Python. The technology got bought by another start-up (Mojam) who used Perl for their web stuff. Both front end systems talked to my Python-based back end (communication between both front ends and the one back end was via XML-RPC). I was sometimes frustrated by the stuff Perl did. The one which stuck with me all these years was its silent conversion of the band name " 311 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/311_(band)>" to the integer 311 on which my Python backend obligingly barfed. I eventually had to put in data type checks for all fields in my back end (my front end already had that sort of input validation) as I could no longer assume a sentient front end was handing it data. Skip -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
