I'm not quite sure why fixed text format with the appropriate meta data does not meet your criteria. It is not as simple to read as a delimiter but you need metadata to use the information anyway. The task of writing syntax to read the program simply depends on how large and complicated the structure of the dataset is. SPSS and Excel have a GUI to help with these tasks.

There are only two errors with CSV files I have come across:

1. Missing fields without delimiters (so every other field in that record is misplaced, I have also had this problem with missing tags in XML)
2. A comma within a text string

(if you have encountered other problems feel free to give examples)

Two is solved with a more irregular delimiter as drnexus suggested (a pipe (|) is one I have encountered before, but a tilde (~) works just as well in that neither is likely to be included in string fields.) One is a problem not easily solved by whatever software you are using, and both are problems with the way people wrote the files to begin with, not the software used to read the files.

I'd also like to say I agree with drnexus on both this thread and his response on your other recent thread about editing these files. You seem to be complaining about the software you use (particularly Excel) and asking to store data in a format that conforms to your ill behaved software. Maybe the question should be how to get Excel to stop auto-formatting plain text files. Your reliable criteria as it appears to me is a software problem with reading plain text files. I don't use R for data management, but I have not had that hard of a time reading delimited files in SPSS as you seem to be suggesting.

If the original files are not written properly what makes you expect any software to reliably read the file? And a specific file format will certainly not prevent you from incorrectly writing the data to whatever file type you choose to begin with.

I'm not quite sure why fixed text format with the appropriate meta data does not meet your criteria. It is not as simple to read as a delimiter but you need metadata to use the information anyway. The task of writing syntax to read the program simply depends on how large and complicated the structure of the dataset is. SPSS and Excel have a GUI to help with these tasks.

There are only two errors with CSV files I have come across:

1. Missing fields without delimiters (so every other field in that record is misplaced, I have also had this problem with missing tags in XML)
2. A comma within a text string

(if you have encountered other problems feel free to give examples)

Two is solved with a more irregular delimiter as drnexus suggested (a pipe (|) is one I have encountered before, but a tilde (~) works just as well in that neither is likely to be included in string fields.) One is a problem not easily solved by whatever software you are using, and both are problems with the way people wrote the files to begin with, not the software used to read the files.

I'd also like to say I agree with drnexus on both this thread and his response on your other recent thread about editing these files. You seem to be complaining about the software you use (particularly Excel) and asking to store data in a format that conforms to your ill behaved software. Maybe the question should be how to get Excel to stop auto-formatting plain text files. Your reliable criteria as it appears to me is a software problem with reading plain text files. I don't use R for data management, but I have not had that hard of a time reading delimited files in SPSS as you seem to be suggesting.

If the original files are not written properly what makes you expect any software to reliably read the file? And a specific file format will certainly not prevent you from incorrectly writing the data to whatever file type you choose to begin with.