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Delimiter

A delimiter is a character, sequence, or other marker that separates or marks boundaries between portions of text or structured data.

How 11 Manning books explain it

Software Testing with Generative AI

A delimiter is a character or sequence of characters that marks the boundary between portions of text or data.

How it is used
Clarifies which prompt content supplies instructions, rules, examples, code, or data for LLM-supported testing and development tasks.
How deep it goes
Demonstrates notation design across prompts and testing workflows, but stops short of guaranteeing interpretation or eliminating hallucinations.
Examples
Uses SQL room data, JSON objects, user stories, risk lists, test cases, Java code, and exploratory-testing criteria.
What you can do after
Apply it via prompt engineering to separate changing data sets and constrain LLM-generated analysis, code comments, test cases, or seed data.

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Grokking AI Applications

A delimiter string or pattern used to divide source text into pieces before they are merged or trimmed to fit chunking constraints.

How it is used
Separates prompt objects from instructions and preserves content boundaries during retrieval-oriented text chunking.
How deep it goes
Explains delimiter selection and processing behavior, then notes OCR irregularities that can weaken an otherwise effective pattern.
Examples
Uses recipe boundaries, a whitespace-and-newline separator, quoted prompt objects, explicit variables, and code containing quotation marks.
What you can do after
Operate/configure it in a Split Text component or prompt by selecting boundaries that keep content identifiable and intact.

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Prompt Engineering in Practice

A marker that separates or bounds distinct regions of content in a prompt.

How it is used
Separates embedded context from task instructions in software-engineering prompts, particularly when variable inputs arrive at runtime.
How deep it goes
Defines boundary markers, compares common notations, and gives placement guidance; cautions that delimiters alone do not prevent instruction mixing.
Examples
Demonstrates fenced incident reports and production-bug prompts with separately bounded logs, change summaries, and code.
What you can do after
Build it from scratch: choose suitable markers and place them around variable context in a reusable prompt template.

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The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition

A separator is a formatting character inserted between groups of digits in a structured text value.

How it is used
Separates fields in text records and groups of digits in formatted phone numbers.
How deep it goes
Works through string splitting and joining, then addresses quoted-field handling with the csv module rather than implementing a full parser.
Examples
Uses pipe-delimited temperature records, whitespace and substring splitting, and phone numbers with varied separators.
What you can do after
Apply it via Python split and join for simple text, or the csv module for delimited files with quoted fields.

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The Well-Grounded Python Developer: How the pros use Python and Flask

A delimiter is a character or sequence that separates adjacent data elements within a structured text representation.

How it is used
Uses delimiters to organize human-readable filesystem data into records and fields that applications can split and read.
How deep it goes
Defines delimiter-based CSV structure and parsing, but stops short of implementation details for escaping or complex delimiter rules.
Examples
Uses customer orders containing names, addresses, ZIP codes, product names, and quantities in a CSV file.
What you can do after
Evaluate how comma-separated text represents records and how applications recover fields by splitting each line.

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Pandas Workout: 200 exercises to make you a stronger data analyst

A field separator is a character or string that delimits adjacent fields in a structured text record.

How it is used
Configures how pandas splits imported or exported text records into columns.
How deep it goes
Defines the separator choice and demonstrates it within broader read_csv parsing, without examining parser internals.
Examples
Uses comma-separated files, tab-separated input, and the colon-delimited Unix passwd file.
What you can do after
Apply it via pandas read_csv and to_csv to parse or write records using a file's actual field separator.

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The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Fourth Edition

A delimiter is a character or string marking the boundary of a literal or heredoc body in Ruby source code.

How it is used
Marks boundaries for Ruby percent-string literals and heredoc bodies.
How deep it goes
Explains matching, escaping, indentation, interpolation, and expression placement without descending into parser internals.
Examples
Uses percent strings, nested braces, SQL heredocs, indented terminators, arrays, and method arguments.
What you can do after
Apply Ruby delimiter forms to write readable strings and multiline values with controlled interpolation and indentation.

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Python Workout, Second Edition

A delimiter is a character or sequence of characters that separates adjacent fields or values in structured text.

How it is used
Translates structured text between input and output formats by configuring CSV readers and writers with matching delimiters.
How deep it goes
Explains delimiter selection, field extraction, output writing, and comment-line handling, but stops short of advanced CSV variations.
Examples
Uses comma-separated vegetables, colon-separated passwd records, tab-separated output, and configurable delimiter exercises.
What you can do after
Apply it via Python's csv module to read, transform, and write files using different field separators.

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Learn SQL in a Month of Lunches

DELIMITER is a MySQL-specific command that changes the marker used to recognize the end of SQL statements or stored procedures.

How it is used
Uses a temporary statement marker to define MySQL stored procedures containing multiple semicolon-terminated statements.
How deep it goes
Explains the delimiter conflict, demonstrates changing and restoring it, and stops short of broader procedure internals.
Examples
Demonstrates GetTitleCategory and AddPromotion with // as the temporary procedure terminator.
What you can do after
Operate/configure MySQL stored-procedure definitions by changing and restoring the statement delimiter correctly.

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Learn Haskell by Example

A delimiter is a character or sequence that separates fields within records in a delimited text format.

How it is used
Uses delimiters to parse configurable CSV-like files into records that can be searched, analyzed, displayed, and written.
How deep it goes
Explains field and line separation, configurable defaults, splitting, validation, and deliberate omission of quoted-field handling.
Examples
Uses a cities.csv listing with comma-separated geographic fields and a search that displays selected city and state columns.
What you can do after
Operate/configure: Choose separators and implement basic field splitting and field-count checks for delimited text.

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Python How-To

How it is used
Use delimiters to join iterable strings into formatted output and split delimited text into fields.
How deep it goes
Explains joining and splitting with examples, then notes the single-separator limit and alternatives.
Examples
Use style settings, task records, and mixed comma-and-underscore data as examples.
What you can do after
Apply Python string methods to format values or parse delimited records.

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Related concepts

These guides are generated from the text of Manning books by Manning's knowledge graph and link to the sections they draw on. The full books are available on liveBook and at manning.com.