Legacy exports, delimited by a rare character.
Free caret to JSON array converter. Paste a caret-delimited record from a legacy export and get a clean JSON array back, right in your browser.
Caret to JSON array
Paste a line delimited with the caret character, '^', and this tool splits it on every caret, trims each value, and returns a formatted JSON array. It is built for the same family of problem as the pipe and tilde converters: older, fixed-format exports that chose a rare character as their field separator.
It runs in your browser. Nothing you paste is uploaded, there is no signup, and there is no limit on how many lines you convert.
Where the format comes from
Older mainframe extracts and some EDI-adjacent flat-file formats needed a delimiter that would essentially never appear inside a genuine field value: a name, an amount, a code. Commas, spaces and even pipes turned up too often in real data for comfort, so some systems reached further down the character set for something rarer still, and the caret was one of the characters that fit the bill.
It was, and still is, a deliberate choice made by whoever designed the export, not an accident. The goal was a character unlikely to collide with anything a person would type into a normal field.
How it works
Nothing to configure, no format to declare in advance.
Why it matters
The caret is rare in plain prose, but it is not rare in technical text. Exponent notation writes '2^10' for two to the tenth power. Some programming languages use it for a bitwise XOR operation. Terminal documentation writes '^C' to mean pressing Control and C together.
Paste a line that mixes genuinely delimited fields with any of these, a formula, a piece of code, a keyboard instruction, and the caret inside that content gets split apart along with the real field boundaries, exactly the same mismatch every delimiter in this family runs into when the data contains the character it was chosen to avoid.
The underlying tradeoff
A format designer picking a delimiter is making a bet: this character will not show up inside real field values often enough to matter. For most business data, names, amounts, dates, codes, the caret was and is a safe bet, which is exactly why it survives in exports built decades ago and still in use today.
The bet only fails when the data itself is technical rather than ordinary business content, math notation, code, or terminal shorthand being the main exceptions.
Straight answer
Less common than it once was, since most modern systems have moved to comma-separated files, JSON or JSON lines for structured exports. It persists mainly in older systems and integrations that have not been rebuilt, healthcare, insurance and certain financial back-office tools among them.
If you are looking at a fresh export from a modern system, a caret delimiter is unlikely. If you are dealing with a legacy integration or an older flat-file format, it is a real possibility worth checking for.
Who uses it
Developers and integration engineers working with an older system's flat-file export use it to get a single caret-delimited row into JSON without building a full parser for a legacy format that is otherwise rarely touched. Anyone migrating data out of a mainframe-adjacent or EDI-style system uses it to inspect a sample row before writing a proper import script.
It also comes up during data archaeology, when someone finds an old export file and needs to understand its structure before deciding what to do with it.
FAQ
Everything below is answered in full, nothing to click open.
Paste the line into the box above and press Convert. Each caret-separated value becomes one array item.
Yes. No signup, no paste limit, no usage limit, it runs entirely in your browser.
No. The split runs on your own device. Nothing is transmitted or stored.
Because a caret almost never appears in ordinary business data, names, amounts, dates, unlike a comma, which made it a safer delimiter for older export formats.
Yes, a caret used for exponent notation, like '2^10', is indistinguishable from a delimiter to this tool and will be split there too.
It will split any caret-delimited text regardless of age, though caret delimiting is now mostly found in older, legacy export formats.
They are trimmed automatically, so any stray spacing around a value is removed.
The empty item between them is dropped rather than kept as a blank array entry.
Yes, there is no length cap and no run limit.
Yes, the layout stacks on narrow screens.
Both target the same kind of legacy delimited export, chosen for rarity, but this one splits on a caret and the other on a tilde. Use whichever character your source file actually uses.
Yes, caret delimiting shows up in some legacy healthcare and insurance back-office formats. Paste a sample row to check the structure.
Not yet. Paste, convert, copy is the fastest route for now.
No, a caret used as a bitwise XOR operator in code will be treated the same as a delimiter and split apart, which will break the snippet.
The output is always syntactically valid JSON, built with JSON.stringify. It cannot tell you whether the split points matched your data's intent.
Yes, that caret is treated the same as any other, so documentation containing keyboard shortcuts written this way will be split apart if pasted.
Open the raw file in a plain text editor and look for a caret character appearing at regular intervals between values.
Yes, nothing is transmitted anywhere. Processing happens locally in your browser.
The tool treats the whole paste as one sequence, so multiple rows produce one combined array rather than one array per row. Convert one row at a time for cleaner results.
This tool is fixed to a caret. The custom delimiter tool accepts any separator you type, useful if your export uses a different rare character.
Paste, convert, copy. Nothing leaves your browser and there is no limit on how often you use it.
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