Thanks for the links. I'll scan them.

Meanwhile Text::CSV_XS 0.27 has left the building and should be available to all when CPAN synced your favourite mirror.

2007-05-31  0.27 - H.Merijn Brand

        * checked with perlcritic (still works under 5.00504)
          so 3-arg open cannot be used (except in the docs)
        * 3-arg open in docs too
        * Added a lot to the TODO list
        * Some more info on using escape character (jZed)
        * Mention Text::CSV_PP in README
        * Added t/45_eol.t, eol tests
        * Added a section about embedded newlines in the pod
        * Allow \r as eol ($/) for parsing
        * More docs for eol
        * More eol = \r fixes, tfrayner's test case added to t/45_eol.
+t
[download]

Work already progresses for the next snapshot that is to include ways to allow buggy formats

2007-06-01  0.28 - H.Merijn Brand

        * Added allow_loose_quotes  (see doc)
        * Added t/65_allow.t
        * Added allow_loose_escapes (see doc) RT 15076

=item allow_loose_quotes

By default, parsing fields that have C<quote_char> characters inside
an unquoted field, like

 1,foo "bar" baz,42

would result in a parse error. Though it is still bad practice to
allow this format, we cannot help there are some vendors that make
their applications spit out lines styled like this.

=item allow_loose_escapes

By default, parsing fields that have C<escapee_char> characters that
escape characters that do not need to be escaped, like:

 my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new ({ esc_char => "\\" });
 $csv->parse (qq{1,"my bar\'s",baz,42});

would result in a parse error. Though it is still bad practice to
allow this format, this option enables you to treat all escape charact
+er
sequences equal.
[download]

I'm playing to see if allow_whitespace is also feasable