CSV vs JSON | In-depth analysis of the data format CSV vs JSON

What's the difference between CSV and JSON? Proxy IP scenarios tested

The old iron engaged in network data capture, must have encountered the problem of selecting the data format. As we use ipipgo proxy IP service, configure the whitelist to guide the IP segment, this time with CSV or JSON, we do not do the whole false, directly on the practical comparison.

To give a real life chestnut:

When you batch export proxy IP in ipipgo background, the system will provide both CSV and JSON format. CSV file with Excel can be directly opened and modified, but if you want to interface with automation tools through the API, the JSON format is obviously more convenient.

Format selection know-how in proxy IP configuration

Those of you who have used ipipgo know that their dynamic residential proxy supports multiple authentication methods. Here's one.Guide to avoiding the pit: When you need to configure thousands of proxy IPs, if you use the CSV format to import them directly, there are often coding errors that lead to authentication failures. At this time to change to JSON format, with their API document structure, the success rate can be increased by more than 80%.

But for ad-hoc debugging, CSV has its advantages. For example, to test a single proxy IP in Postman, it's much faster to just copy and paste the CSV parameters provided by ipipgo than it is to write a JSON object.

Hidden Potholes in Data Storage

I've seen the most outrageous case: someone put ipipgo's 100,000 proxy IPs into CSV, and the whole file was messed up because one of the fields contained a comma. JSON has a clear structural identifier, so this kind of problem doesn't basically occur. But CSV is not useless, when you need to share the proxy IP list with non-technical people, send a CSV file and the other party will be able to use it immediately.

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The combination of using JSON to store databases for daily maintenance and CSV to send emails for external collaboration is quite popular among ipipgo's user base.

QA Session: Proxy IP Format Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What format should I choose to get the proxy IP with ipipgo's API?
A: Priority to JSON! Their interface return data contains IP, port, geographic location, expiration date and more than a dozen fields, with CSV is easy to lose hierarchical relationships.

Q：Why is the exported CSV file opened in Excel messy?
A: Remember to choose UTF-8 encoding export, ipipgo background encoding format options, do not use the default ANSI encoding.

Q: What if I need to process both CSV and JSON?
A: You can try the format conversion tool provided by ipipgo, which can be found in User Center - Data Management, and supports two-way conversion and retains complete metadata.

How much can you save by choosing the right format?

The last time I helped a customer to do crawler optimization, just change to JSON format to call ipipgo's proxy IP pool, the success rate of the request soared from 67% to 92%. the key point is that JSON can completely pass the proxy IP metadata, such as the operator type, the response speed of these parameters in the CSV is easily compressed into a string of missing information.

But don't beat CSV to death, like when our team does proxy IP quality spot checks, we convert the JSON logs to CSV and throw it to the interns to use the filtering function to quickly identify the problem IPs. so yeah.There are no good or bad tools, just the right fitThe

How flavorful is ipipgo's dual format support?

The design of their system is really considerate, in the "Export Proxy IP" page there is aIntelligent Format RecommendationButton. According to the application scenarios you choose (such as crawler development, data backup, temporary testing), it will automatically recommend the appropriate file format. This feature is estimated to be their engineers were annoyed by the user asked to do it, the actual test can be less 80% detour.

A final word of caution: when dealing with proxy IPs, think through three questions first - who is it for? Do I need to modify it? How to maintain the follow-up? Once you understand these questions, choosing CSV or JSON is no big deal at all. If you are really not sure, go to ipipgo's documentation center to search for "format selection", there is a decision flow chart is particularly useful.