MeridianMERIDIAN

Semicolon-Separated Values

container.array.semicolon_separated

List separated by semicolon: value1;value2;value3. Common in European CSV exports (where comma is decimal separator).

Worked samples

DuckDB 1.5.5 · finetype 0.6.64

ValueAs VARCHARparts
apple;banana;cherryapple;banana;cherry['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']
1,5;2,3;4,71,5;2,3;4,7['1,5', '2,3', '4,7']

Shape

Pattern
^[^;]+(;[^;]+)*$
ValueLengthShape
apple;banana;cherry19matches
1,5;2,3;4,711matches

Told apart

3 of the 3 other array types accept every one of these samples on shape alone.

Going the other way, this type's own rule accepts 3 of 3 samples of Comma-Separated Values (Simple), 2 of 2 samples of Pipe-Separated Values and 3 of 3 samples of Whitespace-Separated Values.

Background

Origin

FineType defines semicolon-separated values as a type of its own, labelled container.array.semicolon_separated, in its container domain.[1] FineType's registry describes the type as a list separated by semicolons, written value1;value2;value3.[1]

Raymond Chen's Old New Thing post says Microsoft Outlook uses a semicolon to separate multiple recipients by default.[2] Raymond Chen's post explains that businesses complained that a comma separator caused havoc because their address books set names as Last, First.[2] Raymond Chen's post says the Outlook team tried to change the default in 2000, but the outcry from corporations made them go back to the semicolon.[2]

Use

In the GFF3 genome annotation format, multiple tag=value pairs in the attributes column are separated by semicolons.[3] The GFF3 specification has multiple values for one attribute separated by commas, as in Parent=AF2312,AB2812,abc-3.[3] The VCF specification defines the ID column as a semicolon-separated list of unique identifiers.[4] The VCF specification defines the INFO column as a semicolon-separated series of additional information fields.[4] The VCF specification uses a semicolon-separated list of codes in the FILTER column for filters that a site fails.[4]

Where you'll meet it

Ensembl's README for its yeast GFF3 downloads says its gene annotation is provided in GFF3 format, as specified by the Sequence Ontology.[5]

Sources

  1. [1]finetype/labels/definitions_container.yaml at main · meridian-online/finetype · GitHubFineType
  2. [2]Why does Outlook use a semicolon to separate multiple recipients by default?secondary source
  3. [3]Specifications/gff3.md at master · The-Sequence-Ontology/Specifications · GitHubstandard
  4. [4]The Variant Call Format Specificationstandard
  5. [5]READMEorganisation

Detection notes

v1 migration: New for v2. Semicolon separator common in Europe (RFC 4180 variant with comma as decimal). Decompose splits on semicolon.

Use it

CLI · DuckDB
$ finetype infer -i "apple;banana;cherry" --mode column
→ container.array.semicolon_separated

SELECT ft_infer('apple;banana;cherry');
-- → 'container.array.semicolon_separated'
Cast expression
CAST({col} AS VARCHAR)

Schema

https://meridian.online/schemas/container.array.semicolon_separated · Frictionless type string

finetype taxonomy container.array.semicolon_separated -o json-schema

Aliases

semicolon_list

Type Registry