Dealing with Semi-Structured Data
We learned about various types of data in Chapter 2, Feature Extraction from Texts. Let's quickly recapitulate what semi-structured data refers to. A dataset is said to be semi-structured if it is not in a row-column format but can be converted into a structured format that has a definite number of rows and columns. Often, we come across data that is stored as key-value pairs or embedded between tags, as is the case with JSON and XML files. These are instances of semi-structured data. The popular semi-structured data formats are JSON and XML.
JSON
JavaScript Object Notation, or JSON, files are used for storing and exchanging data. It is human-readable and easy to interpret. Just like text files and CSV files, JSON files are language independent. This means that different programming languages such as Python, Java, and so on can work with JSON files effectively. In Python, a built-in data structure called dictionary is capable of storing...