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Maybe you could just background highlight the empty cells?

Well, I think being promiscuous with "NA", "N/A", nan, etc. is a separate issue from a blank cell. A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA.

> A blank cell is literally missing. That should be filled with NA.

Why? "NA" stands for "Not Applicable", but a blank cell in a CSV could represent any number of things of which "Not Applicable" is only one.

haha. You are right "NA" stands for "Not Applicable". That is not always how people/programs using it though. What are some alternatives that you would suggest? I am happy to learn.

I would suggest similar to what other people have suggested where you color the background of the cell red and then just display the literal content of the cell. I think it would be reasonable to have this configurable via command line arguments though, so if you like the "NA" that could also be a mode.

Perhaps it would make sense to have a "pretty" mode and a "literal" mode (which would also turn off the clever processing of numbers)?

I prefer "ND" (No Data), personally.

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