– Just sharing no answer expected –
I recently ran into what was looking to me like a strange behavior in the APEX SQL Workshop → Utilities → Data Workshop → Unload Data → As Text
The table I exported data from, was having text fields with string content starting with + or - signs as the first character.
The resulting txt file content was having a Tab added in front of the + or - signs of the fields.
These Tabs were not visible when using Excel to look at the data, but showing in VSCode for example.
For information, Options set in the wizard were:
- Separator: ,
- Optionally Enclosed By: "
- Include Column Names: x
- File Format: Unix
- File Character Set: Unicode UTF-8
Thus I have opened an SR with the support who answered following:
What you are seeing is expected behavior. In APEX Data Workshop “Unload Data” to Text/CSV, values that begin with characters commonly interpreted as formulas by spreadsheet applications (such as +, -, =, @) are prefixed with a tab character so that programs like Excel treat them as plain text rather than executing them as formulas.
As this is not part of the documentation I think it makes sense to be shared here.
@jayson-hanes-apex-pm-oracle would it be possible to add this to the documentation, please?