Convert CSV to JSON

Turn a CSV file (an export from Excel, a database or another tool) into JSON. Each row becomes an object whose keys are the column names from the header line.

Sample input

id,name,email,active
1,Alice Smith,alice@example.com,true
2,"Brown, Bob",bob@example.com,false

Values that contain the delimiter are quoted ("Brown, Bob"); that is standard CSV (RFC 4180).

One-line conversion

bafi -i users.csv -t '?{{toJSON .}}'

[
  {
    "active": "true",
    "email": "alice@example.com",
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Alice Smith"
  },
  {
    "active": "false",
    "email": "bob@example.com",
    "id": "2",
    "name": "Brown, Bob"
  }
]

Every CSV value is text, so the generic conversion produces strings only.

Numbers and booleans

Write the JSON yourself to choose the types. toJSON quotes and escapes text values:

[
{{- range $i, $u := .}}{{if $i}},{{end}}
  {"id": {{$u.id}}, "name": {{toJSON $u.name}}, "active": {{$u.active}}}
{{- end}}
]

bafi -i users.csv -t users-json.tmpl

[
  {"id": 1, "name": "Alice Smith", "active": true},
  {"id": 2, "name": "Brown, Bob", "active": false}
]

Semicolons, tabs and other delimiters

Many European exports use ;. Set the delimiter with -d: any single character, or a hex byte such as 0x09 for TAB.

id;name
1;Alice Smith

bafi -i export.csv -d ';' -t '?{{toJSON .}}'

[
  {
    "id": "1",
    "name": "Alice Smith"
  }
]

If you forget -d, bafi warns that the whole header ended up in a single column.

Related: JSON to CSV · SQL INSERT statements from CSV