Parsing Delimited Tables to Hierarchical JSON
Comma-Separated Values (CSV) are standard across spreadsheet software, CRM exports, and database backups. Converting flat 2D rows into object collections requires parsing boundary quotation marks, identifying numeric datatypes, and mapping flat column headers back into nested sub-structures.
Type Inference & Casting
Unlike CSV where all records are plain text strings, JSON supports native integers, floats, booleans (true / false), and null. When auto-casting is enabled, numeric values and boolean states are cast directly without quotes.
Nested Object Reconstruction
Spreadsheets often represent nested JSON by flattening keys with dot notation (e.g. user.profile.age). This converter splits dot separators to reconstruct deeply nested dictionary hierarchies automatically.
Recommended Conversion Settings
| Source Material | Recommended Setting | Primary Benefit | JSON Output Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard Excel / Sheets Export | Comma (,) + Auto-Cast | Preserves numbers as numeric types | Array of flat JSON objects |
| European Regional Exports | Semicolon (;) Delimiter | Avoids splitting on decimal commas | Normalized key-value objects |
| NoSQL Flat Dumps | Unflatten Dot Notation | Restores deep object tree schemas | Nested object hierarchy |
| TSV Database Extracts | Tab (\t) Delimiter | Safe for text containing commas and quotes | Clean key-value dataset |
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this converter handle values containing commas and line breaks?
The parser enforces RFC 4180 rules using a state-machine tokenizer. Fields enclosed in double quotes containing internal commas, escaped quotation marks, or line breaks are parsed as a single atomic value.
Can it automatically reconstruct nested JSON objects from dot notation?
Yes. Enabling the "Unflatten Dot Notation" option parses compound headers like user.address.city into hierarchical nested JSON objects.
Is my CSV data or spreadsheet content sent to a server?
No. The entire CSV tokenization, type casting, object nesting, and JSON string generation pipeline runs locally in your browser via client-side JavaScript.