diff --git a/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/input/CsvStdFeatureSource.scala b/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/input/CsvStdFeatureSource.scala
index e6994911..d6d99344 100644
--- a/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/input/CsvStdFeatureSource.scala
+++ b/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/input/CsvStdFeatureSource.scala
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ import au.csiro.variantspark.data.Feature
 import au.csiro.variantspark.data.FeatureBuilder
 import au.csiro.variantspark.data.DataBuilder
 import au.csiro.variantspark.data.StdFeature
+import au.csiro.variantspark.data.DefRepresentationFactory
 import org.apache.spark.broadcast.Broadcast
 
 class MapAccumulator
@@ -80,11 +81,13 @@ class MapAccumulator
   * ingestion of traditional CSV files for analysis.
   */
 case class CsvStdFeatureSource[V](data: RDD[String],
-    defaultType: VariableType = ContinuousVariable, csvFormat: CSVFormat = DefaultCSVFormatSpec)
+    defaultType: VariableType = ContinuousVariable,
+    optVariableTypes: Option[RDD[String]] = None, csvFormat: CSVFormat = DefaultCSVFormatSpec)
     extends FeatureSource {
 
   val variableNames: List[String] = new CSVParser(csvFormat).parseLine(data.first).get.tail
   val br_variableNames: Broadcast[List[String]] = data.context.broadcast(variableNames)
+  val br_types = data.context.broadcast(optVariableTypes.map(parseTypes))
 
   lazy val transposedData: RDD[(String, Array[String])] = {
     // expects data in coma separated format of
@@ -148,12 +151,25 @@ case class CsvStdFeatureSource[V](data: RDD[String],
       .drop(1)
   }
 
+  def parseTypes(typeRDD: RDD[String]): Map[String, VariableType] = {
+    typeRDD
+      .mapPartitions { it =>
+        val csvParser = new CSVParser(csvFormat)
+        it.map(csvParser.parseLine(_).get).map(l => (l.head, VariableType.fromString(l.last)))
+      }
+      .collect()
+      .toMap
+  }
+
   def features: RDD[Feature] = featuresAs[Vector]
 
   def featuresAs[T](implicit cr: DataBuilder[T]): RDD[Feature] = {
-    transposedData.map({
+    val types = br_types.value
+    val representationFactory = DefRepresentationFactory
+    transposedData.map {
       case (varId, values) =>
-        StdFeature.from[T](varId, defaultType, values.toList)
-    })
+        val variableType = types.flatMap(_.get(varId)).getOrElse(defaultType)
+        StdFeature.from[T](varId, variableType, values.toList)
+    }
   }
 }