Beautification vs. Validation

Developers often use the terms 'Formatting' and 'Validation' interchangeably, but they serve two very different purposes in the data ecosystem.

The Formatter (Beautifier)

A JSON Formatter takes a minified or messy JSON string and applies indentation (usually 2 or 4 spaces) and newlines to make it human-readable. It doesn't necessarily check if the JSON is valid; it just tries to structure it.

The Validator

A JSON Validator checks the string against the RFC 8259 standard. It looks for missing commas, unquoted keys, trailing commas, and mismatched brackets. Even a perfectly formatted JSON can be invalid if a single comma is missing.

Why You Need Both

In a professional workflow, you first validate your data to ensure it won't crash your API, and then format it so your team can debug it effectively.