Guide
How to format JSON
A practical guide to formatting JSON: fixing syntax errors from the line and column, choosing indentation, sorting keys, and what formatting cannot change.
Guides
Guides
Longer-form writing about the conversions these tools perform: where information is lost, which errors mean what, and the decisions a converter cannot make for you. Each guide links to the tool it describes.
- Guide
How to convert JSON to CSV
Convert JSON to CSV correctly: flattening nested objects, handling arrays and missing keys, choosing a delimiter, and the cases where CSV cannot represent the data.
- Guide
How to convert JSON to YAML
Convert JSON to YAML: review quoting, indentation, multiline values, parser-version differences and the limits of a parse-and-serialize round trip.
- Guide
How to convert YAML to JSON
Convert YAML to JSON with the actual parser rules: YAML 1.2 defaults, configured merge expansion, duplicate and multi-document rejection, and directives.
- Guide
How to convert CSV to JSON
Convert CSV to JSON reliably: trimmed headers, type inference, empty cells, quoted fields, ragged rows and why dotted column names stay flat.
- Guide
Base64 encoding explained
How Base64 works, why it exists, what the padding means, the difference between standard and URL-safe variants, and why it is encoding rather than encryption.
- Guide
URL encoding explained
What percent-encoding does, which characters need escaping and where, the space and plus-sign problem, and why double-encoding breaks links.
- Guide
How to decode a JWT
Decode a JSON Web Token safely: the three segments, what each claim means, why decoding is not verification, and the expiry and algorithm pitfalls.
- Guide
How to convert a Unix timestamp
Convert Unix timestamps correctly: seconds versus milliseconds, UTC versus local time, the 2038 problem, leap seconds and why timestamps beat date strings.
- Guide
How to find duplicate keys in JSON
Use the JSON Validator to find duplicate JSON keys before JSON.parse keeps only the last value, and understand the scanner limits.
- Guide
How to review CSV to SQL INSERT statements
Generate and review CSV-to-SQL INSERT statements: headers, inference, NULL, booleans, dialect-specific identifier quoting, and MySQL escaping limits.
Why there are not more of these
A guide exists only where there is more to say than the tool page already says. Writing one per tool would mean producing dozens of near-identical articles padded to look substantial, which helps nobody and is the exact pattern search engines penalise. Every tool page already documents its own behaviour, limitations and worked examples, the guides are for the topics that genuinely need several thousand words.
If there is a conversion you would like explained properly, the contact page is the place to ask.