Comparison of CSV format versus XML format:
| CSV | XML |
| Comma Seperated Values | Extensible Markup Language |
| Flat Table Structure | Hierarchical Tree Structure |
| All rows has the same columns | Flexible list of fields within each node |
| Language dependency for delimiters, date and number format | No language dependency for delimiters, date and number format |
| Difficult implementation of format checks | Easy implementation of format checks |
| Easy to use for humans | Easy to be used by IT systems |
| Designed for manual data entry | Designed for automated generation |