CSV (Comma-Separated Values)

CSV, short for Comma-Separated Values, is one of the most widely used formats for data exchange. Each line in a CSV file corresponds to a row in a table, and individual values are separated by commas (or other delimiters like semicolons or tabs, depending on locale or settings).

It is a simple, lightweight, and human-readable format supported by nearly all spreadsheet tools (like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice), databases, and programming languages. Due to its simplicity, CSV is often used for:

• Importing and exporting data between systems
• Data migration and transformation pipelines
• Uploading datasets to BI (Business Intelligence) platforms
• Sharing tabular data via email or version control

Although CSV is popular, it lacks support for complex data types like nested objects or arrays. When converting from JSON to CSV, only flat structures (or flattened representations) are supported.

A typical use case is converting a JSON array of objects into a CSV format for analysis or system compatibility. The property keys from the first JSON object are usually used as column headers.

JSON to CSV Example

JSON Input:

[
    { "id": 1, "name": "Apple", "price": 0.5 },
    { "id": 2, "name": "Banana", "price": 0.3 }
  ]

CSV Output:

id,name,price
  1,Apple,0.5
  2,Banana,0.3

To perform this kind of transformation easily, you can use our JSON to CSV Converter tool, which automatically handles encoding, escaping, and formatting.

Keep in mind that CSV files may require special handling for fields containing commas, quotes, or newlines. These fields are usually wrapped in double quotes and may include escaped quotes ("") inside them.

Limitations of CSV

• No native support for nested or hierarchical data
• No metadata or typing information
• Encoding issues may arise (e.g., UTF-8 vs ANSI)
• Ambiguity with special characters if not properly escaped