To chase this - converting to json or another standardized format in every single case where someone is tempted to write their own custom parser. Never write custom parsers kids, they're an absolutely horrible time-suck and you'll be fixing them quite literally forever as you discover new and interesting ways for your input data to break them.
Edit: it doesn't have to be json, I really don't care what format you use, just pick an existing data format that uses a robust, thoroughly tested, parser.