Parsing CSV is easier than handling XML or JSON. I do integrations as my job and most common format used is CSV because it's handy simple and reliable compared

Parsing CSV is easier than handling XML or JSON. I do integrations as my job and most common format used is CSV because it's handy simple and reliable compared to other formats. That is exactly the reason why ini and props file are also preferred over database for data which isn't too volatile or big. Any one can open the datafile and see what's stored and what's wrong.