Business analysts, data scientists, and finance teams require rectangular spreadsheets for Excel and BI dashboards. However, modern REST APIs return deeply nested JSON objects. This guide explains the recursive flattening algorithms used to translate nested trees into clean tabular CSV columns.
Dot-Notation Column Normalization
When an object contains nested child objects, the flattening algorithm flattens keys hierarchically using dot-notation (e.g. user.address.postalCode).
json
[
{
"orderId": "ORD_9901",
"customer": { "name": "Elena", "email": "[email protected]" },
"total": 149.99
}
]Translates into the tabular CSV representation:
csv
orderId,customer.name,customer.email,total
ORD_9901,Elena,[email protected],149.99