CSV Validation
ImportCheck automatically detects and validates CSV catalog files, handling the most common separator and encoding variations without any manual configuration.
Accepted CSV formats
| Property | Supported values |
|---|---|
| File extension | .csv |
| Separators | Comma (,) Semicolon (;) Tab (\t) |
| Encoding | UTF-8, UTF-8 BOM, latin-1 (ISO-8859-1), Windows-1252 |
| Quote character | Double quote (") — fields with separators or newlines must be quoted |
| Line endings | LF (Unix), CRLF (Windows) |
| Header row | Required on row 1. Column names are case-insensitive. |
| Max file size | 20 MB |
| Max rows | 10,000 (Starter) · 100,000 (Pro) |
Automatic separator detection
ImportCheck reads the first 4 KB of your file to detect the separator. The most frequent candidate among ,, ; and \t in the header row wins. If detection is ambiguous, the engine falls back to semicolon.
Ambiguous separators: If your product names or descriptions contain commas, always export using semicolon or tab as the separator to avoid misdetection.
Required columns
A valid catalog CSV must contain at minimum the following columns (names are case-insensitive and trimmed of whitespace):
sku,name,price,vat_rate,stock| Column | Type | Rules |
|---|---|---|
| sku | string | Non-empty. Unique across the file. |
| name | string | Non-empty. |
| price | number | Numeric. Greater than 0. |
| vat_rate | number | One of: 0, 2.1, 5.5, 10, 20 (%). |
| stock | integer | Numeric. ≥ 0. |
Extra columns beyond the required set are allowed and ignored by the validation engine. They will appear in the error report for traceability.
Valid CSV example
sku;name;price;vat_rate;stock
REF-001;Wireless Keyboard;49.90;20;150
REF-002;USB-C Hub 7-in-1;29.90;20;85
REF-003;Laptop Stand;34.90;20;0Common CSV errors
MISSING_HEADERA required column header is absent or misspelled. Check for trailing spaces or wrong capitalization.
EMPTY_SKUThe sku column is empty on one or more rows. Every product must have a non-empty reference.
DUPLICATE_SKUTwo or more rows share the same sku value. SKUs must be unique across the entire file.
INVALID_PRICEThe price value is zero, negative, or not a valid number (e.g. contains a currency symbol).
INVALID_VATThe vat_rate value is not one of the allowed rates: 0, 2.1, 5.5, 10, 20.
PARSE_ERRORA row has fewer columns than the header. Usually caused by unquoted values containing the separator character.