hi,
My four bits on CSV for consideration of authors.
1. CSV files store tabular data (numbers and text) in plain-text form. Each line of a CSV file is a record consisting of a number of fields separated by comma, semicolon, any other character or TAB
A general word of caution is that the characters single quote and double quote can cause problems in iimport of CSV files by Calc. Calc treats these as format marks (Enter "Calc" in Notepad - copy and paste it in a cell in a spreadsheet. Quote marks will disappear- Enter single quote preceding double quote '"Calc" single quote disappears. As a precaution - I have never needed to use thesei for import into Calc. My workaround has been to preprocess data in text editor search/replace all single quotes to yen and double to Euro or some such rare to me items) .A foolproof method (so far) is to use TAB character. All spreadsheet software use this to place blocks of text/numbers in separate cells. I often copy entire sheets into external text editors to search and replace with regular expressions and paste it back to Calc and it hasn' complained.
2. It is useful to consider selecting opening preprocessed CSV with the fixed width option, studying the data, making your own Calc table following Menu route Data-Text to Columns.
3. CSV is a simple file format that is widely used for porting data between programs since early days of computing. It is useful not only for many engineering, industrial, business, and scientific applications but also creating your own database from names, email addresses, phone numbers in Windows Notepad and saving it for example as MyFriends.CSV. An example of an advanced application is CAD or a Vector generating programs' vector data output as CSV files. Calc can open these for processing and refining and sending them back.
4. Within LibreOffice environment CSV files can be ported from Database to Calc and back again.