SheetCompareCSV
A plain-text file format where each line is a row and values are separated by commas. The universal export from spreadsheets, databases, and analytics tools.
CSV (comma-separated values) is the lowest common denominator of tabular data. Every spreadsheet app, database, and analytics platform can export it, which is exactly why it shows up everywhere. The format is deliberately minimal: each line is one record, fields are separated by commas, and a value containing a comma or line break is wrapped in double-quotes.
That minimalism is also CSV's weakness. There are no data types, so a leading zero or a long account number is just text until something downstream guesses at it, often wrongly. There are no formulas, formatting, or multiple sheets. And because the rules were only loosely standardized (RFC 4180, 2005), real-world CSVs vary in delimiter, quoting, and encoding. When you compare two CSV exports, those quirks are the usual source of phantom differences.