Data formats

There are several data formats that are used to handle data. This includes XML, CSV, JSON, etc. Scrapple provides support for storing extracted data in two formats :

• Javascript Object Notation (JSON)
• Comma Separated Values (CSV)

JSON

Javascript Object Notation (JSON) files are easy to understand and create. They are easy to parse through, understand and write. It is a language independent format and hence many of the APIs use them as a data-interchange format.

Few data types in JSON are :

• Object: It is an unordered set of name/value pairs.
• Array: It is a set of values of same data type. It is enclosed in a square bracket and the name-value pairs are separated by a comma.
• Name: It is the field that describes the data.
• Value: It is the input data for the name attribute. It can be a number, a Boolean value(true or false), a character(inserted between single quotes) or a string(inserted between double quotes).

For example,

{

        "subject": "Computer Science",
        "data": [
        # Array

                {
                # Object

                        "name": "John",         # String
                        "marks": 96,            # Integer
                        "passed": true          # Boolean

                },

                {

                        "name": "Doe",
                        "marks": 33,
                        "passed": false

                }

        ]

}

CSV

Comma Separated Values (CSV) files consists of tabular data where the fields are separated by a comma and the records by a line. It is stored in plain-text format. CSV files are easy to handle and manipulate.

For example,

Name	Marks	Grade	Promotion
John	96	O	True
Doe	45	F	False

can be represented as,

John,96,O,True
Doe,45,F,False