Turning Ranked Numbers Into Word Tags

Um to make the database, do I use a csv sheet or the blocks as shown in the document? Or can I use either? @ABG

Never mind the question above I already done one in MIT App Inventor. Does this look about right so far? @ABG

unfortunately not, as @ABG already explained earlier

you first should do some more tutorials to learn the basics...

additionally it does not make much sense to copy blocks like you did for each of the categories.... and this is only one month... now the same monster block for the other months? you are repeating over and over again...

DRY - Don't repeat yourself

Taifun

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Oh... now I'm confused about this table. So am I supposed to do this in a csv document? I am not so sure on how I'm supposed to complete the table correctly. I'm trying to understand the document that @ABG shared with me. I've honestly never attempted something like this on App Inventor before. @Taifun

Also, when I complete this table/database, am I able to turn the values back into their specific categories? Or is this supposed to replace the TinyDB that I've implemented into my code? Pls explain. @ABG @Taifun

Thx for the tip!

Here are a couple of more samples to read, to get a feel for how to work with lists and TinyDB tags and values ...

I'm not sure on how my csv sheet is supposed to look like. What is the format or do I just add commas? What are those symbols highlighted in black? I think I can work it out if I understand how csv sheets work in App Inventor since I can understand majority of the blocks in this post and your documents so far. Pls explain how I can create one properly. Thanks!

The CRLF in black is Notepad++'s way of telling its users there are two otherwise invisible characters (carriage return and Line Feed) at the end of each line, typical of a text file on the Windows platform.

How is your CSV file supposed to look like?

A CSV file is typically used to transport a table across machines as a text file.
If you want to transport your monthly budget and spending data by category,
your CSV file would contain 4 columns, as I described at Turning Ranked Numbers Into Word Tags - #2 by ABG

Comma Separated Values (CSV) files have the data items in each line separated by commas (,). Don't ask for trouble by putting commas inside your data items without protecting them with quotes ("Bond, James Bond"), otherwise your column count will be off when you try to read that row.

CSV files, while good for data transport and long term storage, are inconvenient for updating and accessing individual data items. TinyDB would be easier during the current month, if you built tags containing enough information to home in on just the value you want to retrieve and update, like

tag : value
202112/snacks/BUDGETTED : 20.00
202112/snacks/ACTUAL : 25.00
202112/travel/BUDGETTED : 50.00
202112.travel/ACTUAL : 20

(Bottom line, I stayed home and snacked this month.)

Every day as I spend money, I would retrieve the ACTUAL for that item and update it in TinyDB.
At end of month, I would take a TinyDB Taglist, and build a CSV file for export or an in-memory table if I want to do list manipulation (filtering, sorting, summarizing.)

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Ohhhhhh, everything makes sense now! Thanks a lot! I don't need the CRLF right since I don't use notepad++ or do I need it? If it is required, how am I supposed to find that symbol? Thanks again for the detailed explanation!

Do I need quotes as well for the date and amount of money since they are numbers?

there seem to be colons and slashes in each of the rows, do I need that or do I just use commas since it is a csv sheet?

Are you a citizen of one of those countries that uses commas instead of decimal points in numbers?

ummmm for cents we use decimals but for thousands we use commas, eg RM2,000.30. hope that makes sense. Why is this important?

Those aren't rows. They are TinyDB tags and values.
To learn more about TinyDB, see

Oh wait yea I just realized i'm so stupid haha sry.

Commas are important in CSV conversion.
Each column adds an extra item to the current row, and the column numbers are used to identify items in the row.

Have you ever used a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Excel?

Yes

So what you mean is that if I use commas in my numbers, I would have to put them in quotation marks because it would mess with the csv sheet? But if I did it in decimals I wouldn't need to put in quotation marks?

Just don't put commas in your numbers.

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Oh ok thx!

Adding one more point, number having decimal, is part of data as it denotes fraction, but adding comma(s) is just viewing or data formatting. In database we only need to store plain data only, that can to rendered with any required data format.

If this could have been the case here, then also we need to make Excel data in csv style format where comma is having special meaning, as