Pros: Easy to create and read with any text editor or spreadsheet program. Highly flexible for importing and exporting data between different applications.
Cons: Lacks inherent structure for complex data types (e.g., multiple phone numbers for a single contact without creating multiple columns). No standardized way to handle special characters or encoding without careful configuration.
Use Cases: Bulk imports/exports, simple data sharing, migration between systems.
vCard (Virtual Contact File):
Description: vCards are essentially digital business sri lanka phone number list cards that can contain name, address, phone numbers, email addresses, URLs, logos, and even photographs.
Pros: Designed specifically for contact information, offering a structured way to store various contact fields. Widely supported by email clients, mobile phones, and CRM systems. Can store multiple entries for a single field (e.g., multiple phone numbers with type labels).
Cons: While human-readable, parsing vCard files programmatically can be more complex than CSV.
Use Cases: Sharing individual contacts via email, SMS, or QR codes; synchronizing contacts between devices.
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation):
Description: A lightweight data-interchange format that is easy for humans to read and write, and easy for machines to parse and generate. JSON uses a human-readable text to transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and array data types.