# Using non-printable characters as field delimiter in a CSV file

**URL:** <https://community.cdata.com/t/using-non-printable-characters-as-field-delimiter-in-a-csv-file/395>\
**Category:** Data Sources\
**Tags:** article, csv\
**Created:** [September 14, 2023, 9:42pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/using-non-printable-characters-as-field-delimiter-in-a-csv-file/395 "2023-09-14T21:42:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arlin\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@Arlin\_P](https://community.cdata.com/u/Arlin_P)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2023, 9:42pm UTC](https://community.cdata.com/t/using-non-printable-characters-as-field-delimiter-in-a-csv-file/395/1 "2023-09-14T21:42:06Z")

</div>

Sometimes the CSV connectors don’t parse the .csv files correctly due to the field delimiter used in the file. By default, the driver separates each field file by commas, however the field delimiter can be specified by setting the [FMT](https://cdn.cdata.com/help/RVJ/ado/RSBCSV_p_FMT.htm) connection property. The FMT can be set to one of the following values CsvDelimited (the default value), TabDelimited (the driver separates each field by tabs) or FixedLength (the driver counts a specified number of characters to separate each field).

It is also possible to set any ASCII character represented by a hexadecimal string as field delimiter.

Example: If the .csv file uses the SOH (Start of Header) character as field delimiter, try setting the [FMT](https://cdn.cdata.com/help/RVJ/ado/RSBCSV_p_FMT.htm) property to _0x01_ (the hexadecimal representation of the SOH character). The same logic is also applied in the [RowDelimiter](https://cdn.cdata.com/help/RVJ/ado/RSBCSV_p_RowDelimiter.htm) property, which specifies the character that will be used to detect the end of a CSV row.