As part of the Federal Council's Open Government Data (OGD) strategy, the FSO wishes to broaden the range of data formats (open, free of charge and machine-readable), and consequently to disseminate increasingly in non-proprietary formats. To achieve this objective, the FSO has to make a structural change to the format of the tabular data it disseminates: it is essential to replace the « XLSX/XLS » format with a non-proprietary format that is much more accessible for reading machines and for reuse (exchange/conversion) with other applications.
The FSO has established norms and rules for the dissemination of statistical data files in CSV format, in order to standardize these datasets resulting from a crossing of several variables.
These standards do not apply, therefore, to metadata or nomenclature CSVs. There is no need, for example, to follow the rules and recommendations in this document for classification or coding files such as the Swiss Classification of Operations (CHOP).
CSVs that come from exports from dissemination applications for FSO statistical data may differ from this standard. (STAT-TAB, …).
