What is JSON?

What is JSON and how to use JSON objects in web development?

What is JSON?

What is JSON?

In this article we are discussing about the JSON which stands for JavaScript Object Notation. It is widely used on the Internet for mainly transfer the data into text format very easily from server to the client application.

JSON- JavaScript Object Notation

JavaScript Object Notation is a data-interchange format used to write JavaScript-based application. It makes data transfer from one place to another easy.

Though JSON is based on Java Script, JSON parser is used to make JSON work with other languages. It is an alternative of XML. It's very easy way to transfer the data on Internet. Many applications are using JSON for transferring the data on Internet.

It is a lightweight, easy to read and write, easy to parse and generate.

JSON is based on the JavaScript language's object notation and very easy to understand. You can use the text editor to create JSON data. Its also possible to create the JSON data in the text format using libraries available in different programming languages.

"JSON.stringify" is used to serialize a JSON value while "JSON.parse" is used to de-serialize it.

It is a text format that is language independent. ".json" extension is used while saving a JSON file.

JSON notation contains:

  • Objects beginning and ending with curly braces
  • Object Members consisting of strings and values, separated by colon
  • Arrays beginning and ending with braces. Arrays contain values separated by commas.
  • Value can be a string, a number, an object or an array.
  • Strings contain Unicode characters surrounded by double quotes

Example:
{
"Name" : "Deepak",
"Career" : "Software Engineer"
}

Read more tutorials about JSON.

Which programming language supports JSON?

Almost all the major programming languages supports the JSON and provides the api for generating and consuming JSON data. Here is the list of few major programming languages:

  • Java
  • Objective C
  • ActionScript
  • C
  • C++
  • C#
  • ColdFusion
  • Perl
  • PHP
  • Visual Basic

You can check the complete list at http://json.org/

Read more tutorials about JSON.