Hello all

The objective is to get a reasonable volume of data once per day from a source and insert into a DB. This is presently being done using ASP from CSV files using the FSO. Some of these are triggered by users and some are vbs files which are run by windows scheduled tasks.

If there was a new requirement to get a higher volume of data and you could choose from CSV, XML or JSON what would be your preference and why? In my experience CSV files are much smoother and less complicated to work with than XML files. Is this true of have I worked with CSV files so often it just seems this why?

I have very little experience with JSON data but have been playing around a little lately. How smooth is the process a JSON data source and using ASP to get the data into a database? Is this process less complicated and more efficient than CSV and XML?

TYIA

__________________
Wind is your friend
Matt

JSON (and XML) are great for hierarchical data, whereas CSV is easier to work with if all you have is flat records of data.

If CSV works for your scenario, I would stick to it. However, JSON is getting increasingly popular in client-server exchanges, where the browser calls the server for data using AJAX technology.

Cheers,

Imar

__________________
Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
Follow me on Twitter

Author of Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 : in C# and VB, Beginning ASP.NET Web Pages with WebMatrix
and Beginning ASP.NET 4 : in C# and VB.
Did this post help you? Click the button below this post to show your appreciation!

Hi Imar - Thank you for your reply. As usual, your comments are very useful.

__________________
Wind is your friend
Matt

JSON is a much richer structure - if your customers prefer CSV, they can always use an online converter such as convert json to csv.

Hi there - thank you for your input. Sorry if I didn't make it clear but most of these activities are unattended. Manually using a converter is not an option. The outcome of my research is to use CSV files if possible. If we have to deal with JSON files a JSON passer on the server side will allow us to get the hierarchical data into the DB

__________________
Wind is your friend
Matt

OK sorry - I incorrectly assumed it to be a one-off data translation