It should be documented in the [CLI Shell docs](https://sqlite.org/cli.html), but is not. Because ".mode csv" had already been entered in the session I showed, that option was not necessary. But if you had not set the CSV mode before the import, that --csv option makes it happen during the import. You can see its effect mentioned in the CLI shell by entering: ``` .help import ``` or ``` .help -all ``` , (and scrolling back for the latter unless you have a huge monitor and a tiny font.)