Bruce W Cassidy (3/2/2013)
All I can say to that is that it's a good thing that SQL isn't intended to be a parser, and thus we don't have to worry about handling CSV or XML data in the database... 😛
Bruce, I wish you would be right BUT it's like a joke about THEORY and PRACTICE: they should be the same (IN Theory), but in practice they are different.
Please note that original meaning of CSV was CHARACTER-SEPARATED VALUES (more generic case than COMMA-SEPARATED values).
Now, back to PRACTICE - the most craziest thing in legacy system was "a feature" when multiple characters had been used in a single CSV (for instance both , and ; had been used in a single string). Anybody remembers definition of shortcut? Yes, the best one - the longest path between 2 points!
In REAL life we have to deal with uncertainties, one of them - is LACK of data integrity in legacy systems. Always expect unexpected, but be grateful to previous developers - they ultimately created a JOB for you!