Lección 12
Indentation and Line Breaks en español
Guía en español para json indentation and line breaks: When pretty-printing helps humans, when minified bytes matter, and team conventions.
Este contenido todavía no está disponible en español. Se muestra la versión en English mientras completamos la localización.
JSON does not require whitespace between tokens. Indentation and line breaks are editorial choices—they do not change parsed values, but they change how humans and diff tools perceive the document.
Two representations, same data
Compact:
{"user":{"name":"Ada","roles":["admin","editor"]}}
Indented (2 spaces):
{
"user": {
"name": "Ada",
"roles": ["admin", "editor"]
}
}
Parsers treat them as equivalent; reviewers prefer the second in pull requests.
Team conventions
Common standards:
- 2 spaces — default in many JavaScript and web projects
- 4 spaces — some enterprise style guides
- Tab — rare in JSON because many linters expect spaces
Pick one width per repository and enforce it in CI with a formatter check.
When to stay compact
- Production HTTP bodies where bandwidth is tracked
- Embedded configs with strict size caps
- Machine-to-machine paths with no human reader
Store compact on the wire; pretty-print in logs or debug builds if needed.
Diff-friendly layout
Stable key ordering plus consistent indentation makes regressions visible in code review. Random key order or mixed spacing creates noisy diffs that hide real logic changes.
Treat layout as communication for humans, not as part of the JSON data model.