Is there something like csv or json but more graphical and better to read for humans?
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08-06-2021 - |
Question
For example CSV and JSON are human and machine readable text formats.
Now I am looking for something similar even more graphical
for table data representation.
Instead of:
1,"machines",14.91
3,"mammals",1.92
50,"fruit",4.239
789,"funghi",29.3
which is CSV style or
[
[1,"machines",14.91],
[3,"mammals",1.92],
[50,"fruit",4.239],
[789,"funghi",29.3]
]
which is JSON style, and I am not going to give an XML example, something similar like this is what I have in mind:
1 | "machines"| 14.91
3 | "mammals" | 1.92
50 | "fruit" | 4.239
789 | "funghi" | 29.3
There should be reader and writer libraries for it for some languages and it should somehow be a standard. Of course I could roll my own but if there is also a standard I'd go with that.
I have seen similar things as part of wiki or markup languages, but it should serve as a human easily editable data definition format and be read and also written by software libraries.
That's not exactly what markup and wiki languages are for. What I am looking for belongs more to the csv,json and xml family.
Solution
I would checkout textile. It has a table syntax almost exactly like what you described.
For example, the table in your example would be constructed like this:
| 1 | machines | 14.91 |
| 3 | mammals | 1.92 |
| 50 | fruit | 4.239 |
| 789 | funghi | 29.3 |
An alternative (albeit not optimized for tabular data), is YAML, which is nice for JSON-ish type data.
OTHER TIPS
Alternatively you could also look at the CSV editor's i.e.
There whole purpose is to display CSV and update data in a more readable Format. The ReCsvEditor will display both Xml and Csv files in a a similar format.
Google CsvEditor, you will find plenty