LDJSON

LDJSON, also known as Line Delimited JSON, is a variation of the standard JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format designed for processing large datasets and stream-based applications. Unlike traditional JSON, which typically consolidates data into a single, hierarchical structure, LDJSON encodes each data record as a separate JSON object on a new line. This approach facilitates incremental reading and writing, making it especially useful for scenarios requiring efficient data streaming, log processing, or real-time data handling.

In LDJSON, each line is a valid JSON object, and lines are delimited by newline characters. This format allows for easy parsing line-by-line, which can improve performance when working with large or continuously generated datasets. LDJSON files are often used in data pipelines, logging systems, and big data analytics where immediate access to individual records without loading entire datasets into memory is advantageous.

The format is also sometimes referred to as JSON Lines or newline-delimited JSON. Because each line is independent, LDJSON files are compatible with tools that support streaming or incremental data processing. They can be easily converted into traditional JSON arrays or other data structures if needed.

Standard JSON parsers can process LDJSON files with minimal adjustment—by reading the file line-by-line and parsing each JSON object separately. This flexibility has contributed to the format’s popularity in data engineering, machine learning pipelines, and applications requiring scalable data serialization.

Overall, LDJSON provides a practical and efficient way to manage large-scale, streaming, or log data in a format that is both human-readable and easy to process programmatically.