Never EVER suggest using split to parse a CSV file. That is an extremely reckless and stupid thing to do.

I have to say that I think that is somewhat overstating the case. I can't see any problem whatsoever with processing character separated data with split when the data is from a known source and is consistent in its format - say:

FOO,1,2
BAR,2,3
BARG,29,38
[download]

after all we do have split for a reason. On the other hand I think it would be true that if one were to try and process the CSV output of, say, MS Excel with split one is likely to be disappointed with the results, but I wouldn't go so far as you have.

/J\