Guides
Each guide answers one formatting question properly — with a comparison table or token reference you can keep, and examples that open straight in the matching tool.
- Why is my JSON invalid?Common JSON Errors and How to Fix ThemEvery common JSON parser error explained — trailing commas, single quotes, unquoted keys, comments, BOMs and truncated input — with fixes.
- When should I use JSON and when YAML?JSON vs YAML: When to Use WhichA practical comparison of JSON and YAML, with the conversion gotchas that bite: the Norway problem, anchors, multi-document files and comments.
- What is a Unix timestamp, and why seconds vs milliseconds?Unix Timestamps ExplainedSeconds vs milliseconds, the year 2038 problem, leap seconds and time zones — everything you need to handle epoch time correctly.
- What does an ISO 8601 date look like?ISO 8601 Date Format ExplainedThe ISO 8601 format with every variant: dates, times, offsets, week dates, ordinal dates, durations and intervals — and how RFC 3339 differs.
- How should SQL be formatted?SQL Formatting Conventions: A Defensible Style GuideKeyword case, indentation, leading vs trailing commas, CTE layout and JOIN alignment — a SQL style guide with reasons for each choice.
- Why does YYYY give the wrong year?Date Format Patterns Across Languagesyyyy vs YYYY, MM vs mm, and token tables for JavaScript, Python strftime, Java DateTimeFormatter, MySQL and PostgreSQL.
- camelCase, snake_case or kebab-case?Naming Conventions by LanguagecamelCase vs PascalCase vs snake_case vs kebab-case: which each major language, framework and file format expects, and how acronyms are handled.
- Why does my YAML fail to parse?YAML Indentation: Why It Breaks and How It Really WorksHow YAML indentation actually works — mappings, sequences, block scalars and the tab rule — and how to read the errors.
- How do I convert nested JSON to CSV?How Nested JSON Becomes CSV ColumnsFlattening strategies for nested objects and arrays when converting JSON to CSV, and how to rebuild the nesting on the way back.
- What are zero-width spaces and how do I remove them?Invisible Characters: Find and Remove ThemZero-width spaces, non-breaking spaces, BOMs, soft hyphens and bidi controls — what they are, how they break code, and how to remove them.
- How do I format numbers as lakh and crore?Indian Number Format: Lakh and Crore in CodeHow the Indian numbering system groups digits, and how to produce 12,34,567 with Intl.NumberFormat, Python, Java, Excel and SQL.
- What does Prettier change, and why?Prettier Defaults ExplainedEvery Prettier default — print width, semicolons, quotes, trailing commas, bracket spacing — and the reasoning behind it.