How can I view/manipulate a JSON file?

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I'm working on a research project and a research partner has provided me with a massive file of data from his website, which I need to be able to analyze. I've tried importing the file into excel, but it's awkward and figuring out an effective way to delineate the data has proven nearly impossible. Is there any program or technique to take the JSON file and organize the data into something resembling a spreadsheet? (Ultimately, I need to sample the data, but only for a couple variables, for my data analysis. I need to get it into some sort of spreadsheet-type format or something that is visually, if not functionally, similar that would allow me to figure out how many datapoints I have in the relevant categories and to randomly sample them)

Thanks for any help!

Posted 12-Oct-10 7:26am

intern3

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TheyCallMeMrJames · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-12T08:33:00

JSON is indeed structured and well delimited, though perhaps not good pretty to read.

You'll run into the problem fairly quickly that the data is not 'flat' and therefore can't be put on a single row. This is because JSON data can contain rich objects to varying levels of depth.

I think you have two good courses to pursue:
1) Ask for another export of the data, structured flat and with only the data you need to analyze.
2) Write a little bit of jQuery (and use the JSON add-on library) to load the file up and foreach through the data, posting it to s simple database. You could then export the data as you need (or analyze it in-line).

Again, the problem isn't (or shouldn't be) that you're working with JSON, it's just that JSON and Excel are different paradigms.

Cheers.