When JSON to CSV conversion works — and when it does not

CSV is a rectangle. JSON is a tree. Conversion is easy when your JSON is already almost a table, and awkward when it is not. That is a data-shape problem, not a bug in the converter.

The shape that converts cleanly

An array of objects with scalar fields — strings, numbers, booleans, null — maps to rows and columns. Missing keys become empty cells so later columns do not shift.

[
  { "id": 1, "name": "Ada", "role": "Engineer" },
  { "id": 2, "name": "Grace" }
]

Nested objects

Nested objects can be flattened with dotted names: profile.city. Arrays inside a cell cannot become extra columns without you choosing a rule, so Alphzen stores them as JSON text and tells you. That is honest; silently dropping nested data is not.

Delimiters and Excel

• Comma is the default and works in most English locales
• Semicolon is what many European Excel installs expect
• Tab is useful when commas appear inside your fields and you would rather not fight quoting

Fields that contain the delimiter, quotes, or newlines are wrapped in quotes, and quotes are doubled. That is the usual CSV escaping rule. If Excel still collapses everything into one column, switch delimiter before blaming the file.

Use the JSON to CSV converter for list payloads. Format the JSON first if you need to inspect it, then convert.