CSV Tools

Sample TSV File

A downloadable sample TSV file and a working reference for tab-separated values — why tabs, how escaping works, and where TSV beats CSV — with 30 employee records.

Data TSV Text format
Download TSV

sample-employees.tsv

Data Preview

30 rows × 7 columns
1nameemaildepartmentrolesalarystart_dateoffice
2Marcus Chenmarcus.chen@example.comEngineeringSenior Software Engineer1550002019-03-15San Francisco
3Priya Sharmapriya.sharma@example.comEngineeringStaff Engineer1780002019-06-01San Francisco
4David Kimdavid.kim@example.comEngineeringSoftware Engineer1250002021-01-10New York
5Rachel Torresrachel.torres@example.comEngineeringEngineering Manager1680002020-02-20San Francisco
6James Okaforjames.okafor@example.comEngineeringJunior Developer920002024-06-15Austin
7Lena Vogtlena.vogt@example.comEngineeringDevOps Engineer1400002022-04-01New York
8Amir Patelamir.patel@example.comEngineeringBackend Engineer1320002023-01-09London
9Sofia Lindbergsofia.lindberg@example.comDesignLead Designer1450002019-09-12New York
10Carlos Riveracarlos.rivera@example.comDesignUX Designer1120002021-07-20San Francisco
11Hannah Beckerhannah.becker@example.comDesignUI Designer1050002022-11-01London
12Yuki Tanakayuki.tanaka@example.comDesignProduct Designer1180002023-03-14San Francisco
13Olivia Martinolivia.martin@example.comMarketingVP of Marketing1650002019-04-22New York
14Ethan Brooksethan.brooks@example.comMarketingContent Strategist950002021-10-05Austin
15Nina Kowalskinina.kowalski@example.comMarketingSEO Specialist880002022-08-15New York
16Daniel Ochoadaniel.ochoa@example.comMarketingMarketing Analyst910002023-05-20Austin
17Samira Hassansamira.hassan@example.comMarketingSocial Media Manager820002024-01-08London
18Tyler Washingtontyler.washington@example.comSalesSales Director1580002019-11-30New York
19Jessica Huangjessica.huang@example.comSalesAccount Executive1100002020-06-14San Francisco
20Ryan O'Brienryan.obrien@example.comSalesAccount Executive1050002021-03-22London
21Fatima Al-Rashidfatima.alrashid@example.comSalesSales Development Rep720002023-09-01Austin
22Kevin Dupontkevin.dupont@example.comSalesSolutions Engineer1350002022-01-17San Francisco
23Megan Stewartmegan.stewart@example.comSalesAccount Manager980002024-03-11New York
24Laura Chenlaura.chen@example.comHRHR Director1480002019-08-05New York
25Brian Nakamurabrian.nakamura@example.comHRHR Business Partner1050002020-12-01San Francisco
26Chloe Duboischloe.dubois@example.comHRRecruiter780002022-05-23London
27Angela Morettiangela.moretti@example.comHRPeople Operations850002023-07-10Austin
28Isaac Fernandezisaac.fernandez@example.comEngineeringFrontend Engineer1280002022-09-19New York
29Sarah Mitchellsarah.mitchell@example.comDesignDesign Systems Lead1380002020-04-06San Francisco
30Omar Farahomar.farah@example.comEngineeringQA Engineer950002024-02-12London
31Natalie Parknatalie.park@example.comMarketingGrowth Manager1080002021-11-28San Francisco

Need more rows in plain CSV? See the Employees sample dataset.

Raw File Contents

sample-employees.tsv
name	email	department	role	salary	start_date	office
Marcus Chen	marcus.chen@example.com	Engineering	Senior Software Engineer	155000	2019-03-15	San Francisco
Priya Sharma	priya.sharma@example.com	Engineering	Staff Engineer	178000	2019-06-01	San Francisco
David Kim	david.kim@example.com	Engineering	Software Engineer	125000	2021-01-10	New York
Rachel Torres	rachel.torres@example.com	Engineering	Engineering Manager	168000	2020-02-20	San Francisco
James Okafor	james.okafor@example.com	Engineering	Junior Developer	92000	2024-06-15	Austin
Lena Vogt	lena.vogt@example.com	Engineering	DevOps Engineer	140000	2022-04-01	New York
Amir Patel	amir.patel@example.com	Engineering	Backend Engineer	132000	2023-01-09	London
Sofia Lindberg	sofia.lindberg@example.com	Design	Lead Designer	145000	2019-09-12	New York
Carlos Rivera	carlos.rivera@example.com	Design	UX Designer	112000	2021-07-20	San Francisco
Hannah Becker	hannah.becker@example.com	Design	UI Designer	105000	2022-11-01	London
Yuki Tanaka	yuki.tanaka@example.com	Design	Product Designer	118000	2023-03-14	San Francisco
Olivia Martin	olivia.martin@example.com	Marketing	VP of Marketing	165000	2019-04-22	New York
Ethan Brooks	ethan.brooks@example.com	Marketing	Content Strategist	95000	2021-10-05	Austin
Nina Kowalski	nina.kowalski@example.com	Marketing	SEO Specialist	88000	2022-08-15	New York
Daniel Ochoa	daniel.ochoa@example.com	Marketing	Marketing Analyst	91000	2023-05-20	Austin
Samira Hassan	samira.hassan@example.com	Marketing	Social Media Manager	82000	2024-01-08	London
Tyler Washington	tyler.washington@example.com	Sales	Sales Director	158000	2019-11-30	New York
Jessica Huang	jessica.huang@example.com	Sales	Account Executive	110000	2020-06-14	San Francisco
Ryan O'Brien	ryan.obrien@example.com	Sales	Account Executive	105000	2021-03-22	London
Fatima Al-Rashid	fatima.alrashid@example.com	Sales	Sales Development Rep	72000	2023-09-01	Austin
Kevin Dupont	kevin.dupont@example.com	Sales	Solutions Engineer	135000	2022-01-17	San Francisco
Megan Stewart	megan.stewart@example.com	Sales	Account Manager	98000	2024-03-11	New York
Laura Chen	laura.chen@example.com	HR	HR Director	148000	2019-08-05	New York
Brian Nakamura	brian.nakamura@example.com	HR	HR Business Partner	105000	2020-12-01	San Francisco
Chloe Dubois	chloe.dubois@example.com	HR	Recruiter	78000	2022-05-23	London
Angela Moretti	angela.moretti@example.com	HR	People Operations	85000	2023-07-10	Austin
Isaac Fernandez	isaac.fernandez@example.com	Engineering	Frontend Engineer	128000	2022-09-19	New York
Sarah Mitchell	sarah.mitchell@example.com	Design	Design Systems Lead	138000	2020-04-06	San Francisco
Omar Farah	omar.farah@example.com	Engineering	QA Engineer	95000	2024-02-12	London
Natalie Park	natalie.park@example.com	Marketing	Growth Manager	108000	2021-11-28	San Francisco

Schema

Field Type Description
name string Employee full name.
email string Work email address on the fictional example.com domain.
department string One of Engineering, Sales, Marketing, HR, or Design.
role string Job title within the department.
salary number Annual salary in USD as an unquoted integer.
start_date date Hire date in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD).
office string Office location — San Francisco, New York, Austin, or London.

About the TSV Format

This page is a reference for tab-separated values, anchored by a small, well-formed example: a header line plus 30 employee records, fields separated by a single tab character (\t, 0x09).

TSV’s pitch is simplicity. The delimiter almost never appears inside real-world values, so the format needs none of CSV’s quoting machinery:

  • Splitting is literal. line.split('\t') is a complete, correct parser for well-formed TSV. cut -f5, awk -F'\t', and sort -t$'\t' -k5 -n all work on this file directly — try sorting it by salary.
  • No quoting, by design. The strict IANA text/tab-separated-values definition forbids tabs and newlines inside fields rather than escaping them. That restriction is what keeps parsers one line long, and it’s also the format’s ceiling: data containing tabs or embedded newlines needs CSV’s quoting rules instead.
  • What you see is what you parse. Because no character is ever quoted or doubled, the raw bytes and the parsed values are identical — there is no “sloppy parser accepts it, strict parser rejects it” gap to debug.

The one practical hazard is invisibility: tabs and runs of spaces look identical in most editors, so a file that was accidentally space-aligned will split into a single mangled field. If a “TSV” file misbehaves, hex-dump the first line and look for 09 bytes.

TSV shows up as the default export in bioinformatics, in Google Sheets copy-paste (the clipboard payload is TSV), and in Unix pipelines. To move between conventions, TSV to CSV and CSV to TSV convert in the browser.

Looking for sample data rather than a format reference? The Employees dataset serves this same directory as a browsable dataset. All eleven format samples in this section, from JSON to Parquet, carry these identical 30 rows.

FAQ

4 questions
Does downloading this file send any data to a server?
No. The sample is a static file served directly by the site — nothing is uploaded, processed, or inspected. The TSV and CSV tools linked below run entirely in your browser too.
How does TSV handle a tab inside a value?
The strict IANA definition simply forbids it: fields may not contain tabs or newlines, and there is no quoting mechanism. Some tools borrow CSV-style quoting or escape sequences like \t, but you can't rely on it across parsers — which is TSV's main limitation and the reason CSV remains the safer interchange default for arbitrary text.
Where can I get larger or topic-specific sample data?
This page documents the TSV format itself. For datasets to explore — a richer employee directory plus orders, products, and web traffic — see /sample-data/, starting with the Employees dataset at /sample-data/employees/.
Is the employee data real?
No. All 30 records are fictional, and every email address uses the reserved example.com domain, so the file is safe for demos, tests, and documentation.

Work With TSV Files 5 tools

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