Data: tools and formats
Everything we can do with Data files. Most of it right in your browser, with nothing uploaded.
Tools
Formats, and when each one fits
- CSVsince 1972
- — An export for a spreadsheet or a report
- — Exchange between systems that agreed on a separator
- — The data is flat: rows and columns, nothing nested
- TSVsince 1993
- — The data contains commas and CSV falls apart because of them
- — An export from a database or a research tool
- — The file is going into R, pandas or Excel
- JSONsince 2001
- — Exchange between programs and APIs
- — The data is nested: objects inside objects
- — You need a format that does not argue about what a number is
- YAMLsince 2001
- — A configuration file edited by hand
- — You need notes sitting next to the values
- — The data is nested and a human will read it
Common conversions
Each page compares the formats by facts and shows compression figures we measured ourselves, not generalities.