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The lost art of XML — mmagueta (marcosmagueta.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Kissaki@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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There exists a peculiar amnesia in software engineering regarding XML. Mention it in most circles and you will receive knowing smiles, dismissive waves, the sort of patronizing acknowledgment reserved for technologies deemed passé. "Oh, XML," they say, as if the very syllables carry the weight of obsolescence. "We use JSON now. Much cleaner."

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[–] unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

CSV >>> JSON when dealing with large tabular data:

Can be parsed row by row
Does not repeat column names, more complicated (so slower) to parse

1 can be solved with JSONL, but 2 is unavoidable.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

{
    "columns": ["id", "name", "age"],
    "rows": [
        [1, "bob", 44], [2, "alice", 7], ...
    ]
}

There ya go, problem solved without the unparseable ambiguity of CSV

Please stop using CSV.

[–] unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Great, now read it row by row without keeping it all in memory.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago

Wdym? That's a parser implementation detail. Even if the parser you're using needs to load the whole file into memory, it's trivial to write your own parser that reads those entries one row at a time. You could even add random access if you get creative.

That's one of the benefits of JSON: it is dead simple to parse.

[–] abruptly8951@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes..but compression

And with csv you just gotta pray that you're parser parses the same as their writer..and that their writer was correctly implemented..and they set the settings correctly

[–] unique_hemp@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Compression adds another layer of complexity for parsing.

JSON can also have configuration mismatch problems. Main one that comes to mind is case (in)sensitivity for keys.

[–] abruptly8951@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

Nahh your nitpicking there, large csvs are gonna be compressed anyways

In practice I've never met a Json I cant parse, every second csv is unparseable